Can you still Spring clean when not in Spring?

Hmmm. The question I pose to you today is can you still Spring clean when not in Spring?

To me, a Spring clean suggests that cleaning should just be undertaken during one season of the year.  Unfortunately, if you've ever tried this school of thought, you will know that rather too quickly your home becomes a dust magnet and beacon for all manner of weird and wonderful bits and bobs.

I have decided to disregard the Spring clean as that once-a-year monumental clear out and made the decision to do this four times a year.

Until recently, I was hoarder. However, I have had a change of heart. I mean, do I really need a pair of shoes with a hole in the bottom? The answer is no. Even if they are my most treasured pair, the time must one day come for us to part ways. That time is now.

So far, I have managed to relieve my wardrobe of the following:

• four dresses, five pairs of shoes, one pair of jeans (thank you ebay), two jumpers and three handbags.

Other things that I have passed onto a better home- whether they have gone to charity or a ravenous black sack I can no longer recall, include:

• millions (or what seems like millions) of socks, old undies, old t-shirts, reams and reams of paperwork, old kitchen appliances, DVD's, CD's, stationery (the hardest thing to part with as I am a self-confessed stationery addict), books and the odd thing of Dave's that he hadn't realised he didn't need (he doesn't know I've been 'assisting'...). 

I guess that I must have become older and wiser. Stuff doesn't make you happy. Once you've got the stuff, you always seek more. I found it to be liberating having a belated Spring clean. Why cling onto something just to say you have it? Sometimes I really don't understand myself.

So, I am left to conclude that happiness comes from you and the people in your life- not the items that line your shelves. Phew.