the beginnings of a bag lady

It has recently dawned on me that I have acquired a reputation of being some one you can donate/ dump your junk on.

Last week my mother gave me three large sacks of linen, towels and fabric. The week before my Crazy Nan donated some old watercolour paints, a bag of small balls of yarn and some fancy storage containers.

Then a friend arrived with a huge cardboard box full of foam packaging with the words "I thought you would have fun with this". Did she mean I would enjoy picking up foam pellets from every nook and cranny? If so, she was correct. The kids turned the box into a speed boat (no pictures as my camera battery was not charged.) The foam....well, let's not talk about that, in case I break out in hives again.

Then there was the out of date rye flour, the dried beans and brown sugar from another good friend.

I am grateful for generosity of my nearest and dearest, but I also have a sneaky feeling that they have a clear out and can't be bothered with the trek to the charity shop and think "I know, I'll drop of to the WAH's, they'll do some thing with it...and I can have a coffee while I'm there."

Or maybe they like to set me a challenge. Perhaps there is a secret club out there, with the sole aim of flummoxing me with an object I can find no use for. If you belong to it, please take pity and let me know. I won't mind and it will save me lying in bed at night wondering what to do with 5kg of out of date flour and twenty thimble sized glass jars.

The most recent one is fifteen cardboard inner spools from wool skeins...I think they'll make excellent puppets.

The thing is secret club members....I will have the last laugh. It's Christmas soon and I am devoting considerable time devising ever more cunning ways of recycling your junk and giving it back to you in the form of gifts.

Consider this your first and only warning.