This has been a record breaking warm Bank Holiday. So it was time to enjoy which  became a time for reflection. I was tasked to set up the Barbecue-sadly I am out of practice. I didn’t start with enough coals on the first attempt so the whole thing went out rapidly. (My excuse was that I was thinking about quantity of charcoal needed and climate change on this very hot bank holiday) So I had to start again and sure enough this worked but would have cooked food for the whole neighbourhood.

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Getting  the BBQ out of the garage had set off an avalanche of boxes and items stored there for “safe keeping” and a “rainy day”. In truth we needed to eBay/gumtree/freecycle them but could not face the associated steps. See, I know all the names but that’s only the first step. There was also a need to review some life skills

• Selecting items for eBaying,
• Photographing them,
• Writing the advert, pricing and then entering then onto the sales site,
• Monitoring the sale
• Packing the items
• Sorting through the selection of unsold items for recycling or to charity shop or putting in the rubbish

I was left with the realisation that although it was embarrassing that my first attempt at the barbecue had failed, the skills at eBaying and sorting out STUFF ( Special Treasures Underused Forgotten Forgone) were probably much more relevant to our day to day life. In the end after all, one could always call Just Eat or Dominos or such like or put the food in the microwave but to successfully manage all that STUFF takes skill. Even putting out into the recycle bin is a skilled tasks as I gather that there are 58 type of recyclable material. In the end I just went for another Doom Bar beer and tried to let it all wash over me in the sunshine. I did wonder though if my actions had in any way brought about this record breaking heat.

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By the way the bottles will be recycled. as will the caps.