There is a grave in our garden. In it, I have buried Oritse (of JLS fame)’s head, his bowler hat, a few limbs, a car or two and many, many bits of plastic tat.
OK, so it’s not really a grave. It is a chasm. A pit. A hole, really.
Yes, you guessed it. Big Seymour has been working on the patio.
Oritse’s head is made of rubber – don’t panic. I did not hunt him down and hurt him. I bear him no malice. He seems quite nice, actually. But for how long should I keep part of a character doll, before it becomes ridiculous? Likewise, the buried limbs belong to Monster High dolls. I have been hanging onto them for years in case I suddenly manage to reunite them with Avea Trotter’s torso, or Clawdeen Wolf’s upper thigh. No longer.
I am trying very hard to GET RID of surplus stuff. Plastic tat, unworn clothes, unsuitable furniture. It’s all going. I hate throwing stuff away, and there isn’t much you can do with dolly body parts, defunct ipods or tacky plastic keyrings, and so, when a pit presented itself in the patio construction process, I saw an opportunity. “Find something! Everyone! Throw something in!” I said, echoing the witch in Room on the Broom.
It worked. Boy Seymour threw in a broken Blackberry tablet. (He also fished stuff out, but we will gloss over that.) Little Seymour Number Two threw in some beads and key rings. There were bits of 80s Lego train track and broken Playmobil added, and a couple of marbles, too.
This was not, however, purely practical. If it had been, the pit would have needed to be much larger, and our resolve to declutter – much greater. No, this was an effort at soul cleansing, too. Because it wasn’t just objects that I threw into that pit. I have also tried to throw in less, how shall I put it…? Less tangible things.
For example, one thing I have put into the pit is a whole heap of guilt. Also, some regret. Low self-esteem and self-loathing have been jettisoned, too. And then there was a sprinkling of obsessiveness, followed by something I like to call “fictional alternative nostalgia”, which is essentially a longing for things that have not happened, or did not work out as envisioned.
I have “thrown” these things into the pit, alongside Oritse’s head, and now they all lie under the patio, cemented in, dead and buried, in the hope that they all will stop haunting me quite so badly.
Oh, I do hope it works.
And maybe now I have made efforts to transfer those heavy burdens out of my head and into the ground, I will have more room for harmless musings, such as “Why does my printer have a mind of its own?” and “Should I or should I not endeavour to tackle the thankless task that is organising the Year 6 Leavers’ Yearbook?”
Updates to follow (as long as the evil spirits remain interred).
Wish me luck… x
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