Freegle eagle

Moving on to a new phase in life inevitably involves moving out of the previous phase. I find myself ensconced in the mother of all clear-outs. It amazes me now just how much stuff I've dragged along from place to place over the years. You'd think that, having lived in different towns - and even countries - over the years, I wouldn't still have a file full of old 35mm film negatives, or letters from old boyfriends. But I do.

Or at least I did. The recycling bins have been full for weeks.

I have now sifted the contents of my life into three piles:

• Coming with me to my boyfriend's in Cumbria
• Going to Ireland for storage
• Going to the charity shop or other forms of disposal

This last category is the one that has occupied so much of my headspace over the past weeks. My new friends are Freegle, the noticeboards in work, Gumtree, and UKClimbing. Gumtree is great, because it's free to list and sell things on there, as a contrast to the now-high fees charged by eBay. And UKC has been great for selling some climbing/walking gear. But it's Freegle that tickles me the most.

If you haven't heard of it, it's a free site where you list things you either want to give away or which you need. I've re-homed quite a few things on Freegle now, and the great thing is people come and get the stuff. You don't have to take it anywhere.

Selling/giving things away on these sites brings you into contact with a fascinating range of people. There was the dedicated computer enthusiast who came to collect the very old laptop I offered on Freegle. Took me back to my days of working for an internet service provider. And then there was the woman who couldn't come for my other old computer on the pre-arranged night, because she was left feeling floored after her elderly neighbour was knocked off his bicycle. We texted back and forward over the next week or so and she arrived to collect it one evening. Lovely woman. Then there was the guy who'd just moved to Blackpool from south London. He bought a chair. He wore a black beanie and a black sweater with 'London Boy' writ large on it. Then there were the people I never saw... the ones with whom it proved impossible to arrange a mutually convenient time, for whom I simply hid the items in various places outside my flat!

All great fun, albeit a bit time consuming. On the odd occasion when I have to go to the tip with something that genuinely is rubbish, I'm always simply stunned by the perfectly re-usable items that people are hauling up the steps to the skips... not least pieces of furniture that generally look better than what I've got in my house. Instead of a run to the tip, it'd be just as easy to drop it off at a charity shop. Or, better still, Freegle it - then you don't have to run anywhere.

I'm now in the middle of a last-ditch attempt to sell a few remaining bits of furniture. I'm hoping that St Catherine's Hospice shop in Preston will take whatever's left. They even come with a van and get it.