For the last five months we have had the new boiler sitting at the top of the stairs in it's box, waiting for someone to fit it. We waited and waited for one person to give us a quote and kept ringing him. Apparently the quote got lost in the post three times and the email he sent me was also lost in cyberspace too.
The next man took almost a week to get back to my initial enquiry and when I rang him, he seemed annoyed that I has chased him up and told me he had been very busy with burst water pipes...funny that, you being a plumber! When he eventually turned up to give me a quote, he looked like he had stepped straight off BBC Rogue Traders, complete with dodgy pony tail and didn't even wait to get in the house to tell me how other people don't do the job properly but he does. Hmm
Step forward plumber number 3. He has answered all of my phone calls, has been quick getting the quote back to me and his 'boys' only turned up half an hour after the agreed time this morning so that's not too bad is it? Lets hope they are all done tonight and I can enjoy a bath for the first time in months.
In preparation for the work I have spent a lot of time moving things around so that the plumbers can get to where they need to be and I made an earth-shattering decision to get rid of some books. Our house is heaving with books and book cases. Any surface left empty for a day or so, a pile of books seems to grow on it so we needed drastic action.
All of the books that I haven't read for years, and am never going to read again, are in the car, ready to go to the charity shop. I've saved some books....all of the ones that are here actually. I read 'Goodnight Mister Tom' when I was J's age at school and I want to read it with J and L and there are a fair few books about living in France...I like to dream ;)
Do you keep all of the books you read? How do you choose which to save and which to get rid of?
5 comments:
Hot water AND central heating? Goodness me, someone is being very modern! :-p
I read a lot but I re-read books quite a few times. If a book stays on my bookshelves it's because it's one I love and know I will read again and again. If I get given a book and it's not really my thing after I've read it then I will get rid of it at some point when I'm starting to run out of space.
I do have two full size Billy bookcases filled with my books though and have just purchased a third so it might be a while before I have "too many" (if there is such a thing!)
I keep more of my childhood books than adult ones - altho' I mostly now listen to audiobooks as i can knit at the same time! ;) I could never part with my Narnia set tho' (either of them! LOL) Hope you get/got to enjoy your bath x
Shabba me Whiskers - Mr Gum is funty!
Completely identify with overgroaning bookshelves - I currently borrow my books from the library so keep all my old faves on the home shelves without having to decide which to pass on! I also keep a book journal so that I can remind myself of plots and characters - as I'm afraid I tend to forget the previous one once I start the next - and all my new faves are back on the library shelves!
The magical Harry Potters take up some room - but they're on our son's shelves alongside Captain Underpants and of course Mr Gum!
Hope you enjoy your bath - do you read in there?
Ali
To my shame, I have an 'overflow bookshelf' located in my parent's house, for books I can't quite bear to get rid of.
The technique I have developed, however, is to not buy books at all but use the library. This means that a) if you read a rubbish one, you don't get cross about spending money on it and b) once you've finished with one, it goes back and doesn't clutter up your house. If I get the same book out of the library two or three times, then I buy it - this saves a lot of hassle and shelf space!
I get most of my fiction from the library (if I really really like it I buy a copy), but buy the more academic stuff that the library's less likely to have. I keep clearing stuff out via Greenmetropolis too though.
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