The purge of my hoarding spoils continued apace yesterday, when the understair cupboard was the victim/recipient (delete where applicable) of a Strachan de-clutter.

For a while every time we opened the cupboard door a pile of books, old personal organisers, printer ink packages and shoes spill out onto the living room floor, making this a much needed task.

I wouldn’t care the shoes aren’t even ours. I suspect there our nosey neighbours from over the road who has taken to spending surveillance time in our cupboard, after growing tired of hiding in the fridge to check our perishable food consumption.

With the assortment of clutter in there I’m amazed she can fit into the confined area. I can only envisage that perhaps when you shut the door from the inside the cupboard is deceptively spacious, similar to Doctor Who’s tardis.

This a portal where she can walk around unhindered, asking daleks “What did Gary and Karen have for their dinner yesterday?”…… Not to mention berating them for the irritating overuse of the word exterminate.

Thankfully, my wife Karen and me were able to identify a number of items to unceremoniously jettison from chez Strachan when we visit our local tip later today. Meaning we now have a tidy cupboard, a space that doesn’t require reflexes of a cricket slip fielder to catch its contents upon the door being unlatched.

Amongst the books were several that I’d read on holidays past; predominantly of a humorous or sporting autobiographical nature. I fondly recognised these paperback tomes as the literary offerings that had entertained me for hours during several Mediterranean holiday jaunts.

The books, such as a few of Les Dawson’s hilarious fictional musings, along with autobiographies of Phil Tufnell, the Monty Python team, Gazza, George Best and Lee Mack, were immediately identifiable by their sun cream tarnished edges. Ambre Solaire factor 20 cream forensically placing me as the reader.

I boxed up these books, before adding them to the mountain of detritus in my garage for onward disposal later.

Looking back on the old personal organisers was an eye opening experience. The good quality leather bound books, which were a present from Karen around the beginning of the noughties, gave an interesting insight into my lifestyle in the early 2000’s.

Scanning their hardly touched, diary, planner, ‘to do’ and notes sections indicated to me that either I didn’t do a great deal back then, or was just too idle to populate the pages with my movements. On reflection it was probably a bit of both.

I kept the organiser binder, notes and ‘to do’ sheets that were still chaste, binning the out of date calendar sheets and an old fixture list for a local cricket club I played for at the time.

I surmised that getting rid of a cricket fixture list from 2003 was a safe enough bet. After all, I’m sure in the requirement of an alibi for the grammar police, the Aire-Wharfedale League fixture secretary can provide them with my whereabouts on any given Saturday in summer 2003. There really wasn’t a requirement to keep a record of game days for myself.

As I mentioned above, the understair cupboard is now pristinely clean and tidy, with more than enough space for my nosey neighbour and the daleks.

My garage, though, is a different story. Until I undertake my post lunch venture to the tip, it looks like Harold Steptoe’s junk yard. God only knows where the horse came from!

I must dash as this unshaven old man needs to join his cohort to load up for the tip visit……. “’arold!…..’arold!……. Don’t leave me ‘arold?!”