Time Team, Where Are You?

The loft has to be cleared so that it can have another layer of insulation put down. So I set about this task after breakfast.

Had Tony Robinson and co been on hand, I suspect they would have got quite excited “Look, we have got through another layer, and here we find evidence of Edwardian…Victorian…Roman…Egyptian civilisations…”

8.30am. Bathroom cleared, some boxes on landing, loft pretty full

First load of stuff down is the Christmas Section – which includes not only family stuff, but also all the church Xmas stuff - Get In The Picture Costumes [purple bag in the bath] and Large Nativity Display Figures [I understand Lord Lloyd Webber has a new programme where he is ‘searching for Jesus’ – well, you could try looking by my bathroom window, Milord] Here we are at 9.15am

Just a slight change to the upper chaos!

10.30am and things are really beginning to look different up there

By now the bath is full of camping and sports gear and crates of fabric are descending to be stacked

10.45 am – the bathroom is getting pretty full. Crates of School Supply Materials, archive boxes of all sorts of random papers and bits. And more crates of craft supplies

You can see the floor up there now. Not much stuff left other than the suitcases and empty boxes** under the eaves.

At this point there was a minor crisis. I attempted to lift down a crate which was heavier than I realised. I lost my grip – and ended up with a heavy crate resting on my chest, and the side of my face wedged between the crate and the edge of the loft hatch. I couldn’t get hold of the crate to move it up or down, I was beginning to panic and feel woozy. “Help! Bob!” I yelled, from the top of the ladder.

Fortunately Bob was within earshot, and dashed upstairs to rescue me! After lecturing me on attempting to do too much as usual, we then worked together for a while. I was ‘up’ passing things to Bob who was ‘down’ By 11am, all the heavy stuff was down. The bathroom quite was full [but I made sure that the door will close] A second incident occurred when I stood up under the eaves and bashed my head on a joist.

“Stop! Now!” said Bob, and five minutes later I did come down the ladder and called it a day.

I have been incredibly disciplined and not allowed myself to look in the boxes or doing any sorting at this point – today was simply the clearing exercise. I did move four boxes of Holiday Club Bits to one side for immediate use. But I did spot these in passing

Edwardian – two huge photographs of my great grandparents

Victorian – china which was great-grand-mamma’s wedding stuff

Tudor – a complete half-term’s teaching topic on Henry VIII and co

Egyptian – a whole bag of teaching resources about the pyramids

Roman – all my Horrible Histories books and a set of armour

Chinese – set of New Year Artefacts and display materials

Boys Own Paper – from the 1930s, bound into book form by Grandad

WW2 Home Front – ration books, posters, wartime recipes and more

Peter Rabbit, Bunnykins, NatWest Pigs China from the 1980s

…also an inflatable monkey, a box containing a stuffed chicken [which clucks quite alarmingly when shaken] Bob’s “History of the 20th Century” magazines, all the notes from my BTech course, 3 containers of pine cones, a large box of goggle-eyes, enough fabric to completely cover the Eco-House…

It is not all going back up.

Another hour of work and the loft should be empty. Fortunately we are blessed with an ensuite with a shower- so can manage without this bathroom for a bit!

**I keep the original packaging from my sewing machines, for when they go back for servicing, and the boxes from my Willow Tree China, and Bob has a few other boxes which need to be kept for ‘transit’ purposes. But we don’t keep all our packaging.