There comes a time when only a thorough clearing out will hit the spot. Himself has a pile of Money Weekly type magazines that go back to before the banking apocalypse when you could still put your cash in a savings account and earn some interest on it. This dusty tower of old paper is spilling out from underneath a coffee table in our living room and there may well be spiders living in it.
I have books and papers, too, stuffed in old shoe boxes, cluttering drawers. There’s a box full of old musical films on Video Tape, for goodness’ sake. How did they escape the last thorough clearing out session?
Gollum Boy, remember him? Here’s a reminder: 
Teenage Gollum
He’s still upstairs, growing greyer. He is surrounded, in his bachelor pad at the top of the house where he has more space for his belongings than his father and I in our own bedroom, by games and toys from his pre-online gaming era. Those days when he still looked like a boy. Remember them? Those days when he spoke a language you could understand?
He doesn’t have the inclination to offer any help toward this clearing out of old stuff. Not even his own old stuff. He doesn’t see it as his responsibility to sort and clear out his own old stuff. He thinks it should all be dumped in a bin bag and thrown away. Hang on a minute, we said. Some of this stuff is worth a bit of money.
I should point out at this juncture that himself and I manage on a limited budget. Very limited. That’s why we are very careful on Red Days.
It’s why we trawl the supermarkets for special offers on joints of meat and why we don’t eat out very often. So, chucking out hundreds of pounds’ worth of Lego and other young kids’ stuff was way beyond what we could allow to happen.
Himself and I began to sort through the black bin bags Gollum Boy had deposited at the bottom of the stairs. All these Lego bricks, never put away properly, the empty boxes stuffed into other bin bags. Everything all mixed up. 
Aaaaargh! I think that’s what I cried out. It might have been something stronger than that.
This pile is supposed to be a Lego City Airport with planes and terminal buildings. There should be a sea port too with ferry boats and . .
But Gollum Boy is too grown up for all this stuff now. He hasn’t got time to put it all back into its boxes so we could flog it at a car boot sale. And he has made a HUGE mistake in not offering to help.
Father and I will do it for him – Little Red Hen style. Do you know that story? Little Red Hen needs help to plant the seeds, to grow the corn, to go to the mill, to bake the bread. Nobody wants to help, but when the loaf is baked they all want to eat some. No, says Little Red Hen, I shall eat it myself. And she did!
Gollum Boy is not invited to the car boot sale day. Father and I will put in all the effort.
We’ll sort out the airport pieces and tape up the box.
We’ll find the ferry. We’ll book our pitch at the car boot sale and eat a picnic under the trees with French bread and cheese, possibly a beer from the catering van.
And we will keep ALL the proceeds.
