The great purge of 07

The new flat all looks gorgeous but a few of our pieces don't fit. So I'm about to embark upon my first foray into ebay.

The things I'm selling are all indirectly baby-related - I've been hanging onto them thinking, 'This will be useful when...'. Because so many people know we are trying to get pregnant, I tend to accumulate things and then have to let them go. For a few seasons I had a couple of maternity dresses and tops - not heaps, just a couple of great items post-pregnant friends had given me. But eventually I had to get rid of them - they were taking up space in my wardrobe and anyway it kinda reeks of desperation to have maternity clothes hanging around when one is not in the family way.

I've been hanging on to these pieces of furniture thinking they would be handy in a child's room. But they don't fit in our new flat and at the moment I'm paying $200 a month to keep them in storage. I think it's good - cleansing, even - to get rid of them. This move to Brisbane is partly about not having my life revolve around the cycle of are-we-or-aren't-we, and having furniture sitting out in the shed waiting for some phantom child to come along is a bit like empty maternity dresses in mothballs revisited.

This is my favourite. I found the raw cupboard at a garage sale many years ago, all layers of scrappy red paint. I remember I was still with Jill and living in the house in F Street, Thornbury; I had the cupboard under construction for months in our concrete backyard (the landlord was Italian - you know the sort of yard I mean, a trim expanse of grey cement with a small kerbed circle cut in around the lemon tree - why do people do that? it was so breathlessly hot and oppressive in that yard all the time) so it must be ten years ago. I painted this myself. I'm not usually artistic but I think I did quite well with this, it looks quirky. Lovergirl doesn't like it, she never has - she's more of a classic white kind of girl. It's a bit too childish for her. Foolishly, I packed it up to bring to Brisbane instead of leaving it in the bathroom where it has been living as a linen closet, careful not to draw attention to itself.

Now of course it doesn't fit in our new flat. I'm sorry to be selling it - I'd rather give it to someone I know with children. It was painted with children in mind although I never dreamed it would take this long.

Then there is this sad old thing. It's an antique, but it's in very bad shape. The frame is good but as you can see it urgently needs recovering. It's covered in layers of floral material. Mel's parents (who had an antiques shop) told me about this style of chests of drawers, how they were made by labourers out of fruit crates at the turn of the century (?Not sure if that's right). Mum gave it to me for a birthday present, maybe five years ago. I always intended to re-cover it in a plain blue fabric, something richly textural like microsuede, but hesitated because of something I read once about people who wreck antiques by 'restoring' them. So instead of me wrecking it through amateur restoration, it has gradually rotted away, getting more and more tatty until it was banished to the shed about a year ago. Still, I thought it would be handy in the baby's room and that when I got pregnant I would finally get motivated to jazz it up. Maybe someone will buy it and actually fix it and it will finally get a whole new lease of life. I feel guilty divesting myself of a present that Mum has given me.

Then there's this large chest, another useful item in the child's room; I thought it that I would spraypaint it a bright colour and it would make a good toybox. Doesn't fit in the flat; has to go. I'm not emotionally attached to this so not a big deal.






And finally, there's this fabulous chair of Lovergirl's. It's huge - this one literally wouldn't fit in the flat - we couldn't get it down the hallway. It's too wide, with those wings. I love this chair; it's fabulous for sitting and reading in. I wouldn't mind taking into work and putting it in my office - but i don't think it will fit in the car. Anyway, there are more chairs in the world.

I'm terrible at getting rid of things. But when i moved from Melbourne to Nth NSW, I put all my stuff in storage for three years. When it finally arrived, I thought, 'What crap! I could have bought this stuff three times over with the amount I have spent on storage fees.' So hopefully this little eulogy will make the separation much easier.

This isn't all the baby stuff out of my life though - there's still a box that the next door neighbours gave us after Indy got too big for them - a few clothes, and a change table, and a baby hammock that he used to sleep in. I think it's okay to hang onto that for a bit longer.