Stuff, and the accumulation thereof

It turns out that we have a lot of stuff. I'm not entirely sure how, but in the 4.5ish years spent sharing a flat, we've managed to gather enough things to fill 12 carloads. This includes two estate cars and also takes into account us chucking away (or freecycling) another two carloads worth of crap. In less than a week we'll have the equivalent of less than 1/3 of a car seat strapped to our back, which needs to keep us going for a year. To put it into perspective, when we went camping in June, we took an entire boot full of stuff. For two nights.

We're not hoarders by any stretch, but the sheer amount of items we've accrued makes me wonder if we need it all. Now that I've got a Kindle, I could theoretically get rid of my book collection, but I like books. I like the feel and the smell of them, and the Kindle strips them down to some sterile entity which, whilst retaining the essence of "story", neglects the tactile pleasure in having the thing in your hand, and turning crisply printed pages to reveal the gems within. "A real page-turner!" has become "A real right-arrow clicker!". Call me picky, but it doesn't feel the same. On the other hand, I currently have more books on my Kindle than I could fit into our second bedroom, floor to ceiling. I guess there are pros and cons both ways.

I imagine when we decide where we ultimately want to live (which may have vastly changed after our time away), some hard choices will need to be made. As much as I would love to spend a week travelling from Harrow to Milton Keynes via Bromsgrove, Widnes and Liverpool simply picking up our belongings only to move them to a spare room/cupboard/attic/the bin, I'm hoping that living on nothing but a week's worth of clothes will help us realise that we don't actually need that much. I say that, but I'm sure once we're back in the thrall of first-world consumerism, best-laid plans will head straight down the newly-purchased eco-toilet (with built-in flush sensor, MP3 player socket, and synonym checker for those trickier crossword moments - all absolutely essential).

I may have been a little hasty with my praise about Kindle blogging - the email version I got seemed to have stripped out the apostrophes when viewing it on the Kindle (but oddly, not on a PC). If any readers are viewing this on a mobile, iPad or similar, do me a favour and leave a comment letting me know if the apostrophes are alive and well.

Stuff, I can do without. Having the Kindle make me look like I have the grammatical ability of an eleven year old with ADD is beyond the pale.