Long distance packing – a lesson in decluttering

 “The things you own end up owning you”. I thought this was a profound quote from one of the minimalist influencers. (I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube vlogs about minimalism lately.) Turns out I was wrong. It’s a quote from Tyler Durden in the film Fight Club. Until now, I’d never heard of Tyler Durden, or Fight Club, but a quick Google soon rectified that. Not that I’m going to be watching it any time soon, even if it does star Brad Pitt. But it got me thinking about all our ‘stuff’.

Fourteen years ago we sold virtually everything that didn’t fit into either our motorhome or a 100 cubic foot storage unit and set off around Europe. I didn’t really expect to return to the UK, but fast forward a few years and we were back in a series of flats and houses, and the stuff had surreptitiously made its way back into our lives. We moved seven times during this period, each time taking the stuff with us, or acquiring more of it to suit each new location. When we moved to La Boissonnie, not only did we take our own stuff with us, over a period of years, but we bought a house that came fully furnished, right down to the bottle of wine and baguette on the kitchen table.

Once again, we are on the move and I find myself wondering where does it all come from, and do we really need it? I dread to think how much we have spent on professional removers over the years and now, post-Brexit, it so much more difficult. Back in the day, living in France, you could order just about anything from the UK and have it delivered to your door. From a sofa to a full supermarket shop. You’d see people at the Eurotunnel with cars, trailers and vans loaded up with materials from B&Q: loft insulation, wood, and, of course, the infamous paint. (There is an expat myth that French paint isn’t the same as British paint, despite Dulux being an international brand.) We even used the ‘man and van’ service ourselves to ship goods across the Channel, and indeed, back again when we returned to the UK just under two years ago. Little did we realise that when the last remnants of our life in 87 were transported that Brexit would bring down the shutters on a simple and easy process. So simple, in fact, that no questions were ever asked on either side of the Channel.

Now things have changed, and not for the better. I’m back in France and trying to supervise the removal of the remaining personal effects that we did not manage to sneak out in the campervan. We’ve got a remover booked and Mr VV is desperately trying to whittle down our possessions to a reasonable level, whilst I try to organise the admin from afar. He’s sold stuff on Marketplace and Ebay, taken several loads to the charity shops and made numerous trips to the tip. And we only lived in a Hut!

The post-Brexit rules are that you can bring household goods and personal effects back into France, without tax or customs duty (we hope, fingers crossed) provided you are moving your primary residence. There’s a form to fill in, of course, and then there’s the inventory to compile. All the boxes have to be weighed and listed, and their second-hand values estimated. It was this last element that struck me, as the total second-hand value of the ‘stuff’ is actually less than the cost of transporting it. This doesn’t account for the fact that replacing it with new would cost more, or that some of the items are ‘sentimental’ (though Mr VV refuses to believe that my mother’s old cheeseboard has any sentimental value whatsoever … and we don’t eat cheese!).

I’ve been living in our new Hut home for a couple of months now and found it is surprisingly easy to manage with just basic kit. I have everything I need and nothing surplus. How many different plates, bowls and saucepans do you need? Storage jars? I just save the empties and before long a new collection is easily built up. I find I can work just as well off a laptop (better in fact, as I move around more) than off a huge desk with two screens and all the accoutrements. My plan is to read the books I have brought down and then recycle them – the English ones to the book swap here, the French ones to the book exchange kiosk at the Mairie. And then I’ll join the library. I’m planning an overhaul of my wardrobe too, as this seems to have expanded way beyond my target of 80 items I set when doing Project 333. We both feel weighed down by too many possessions. The experience of the last year or so, living with hoarders, as I wrote about last year, has really brought home to me that we need to create another Hygge Hut, here amongst the vines and, for the future, stem the tide of stuff flowing into our lives.