The sort of person I am not like . . .

. . . but wish I was.

A woman develops a methodology to store her scarves.

I will spend years thinking about doing this, without actually doing it.,

Useful idiots

A man I know, a man not unknown to military manoeuvres on the battlefield, a man who, in fact received a battlefield promotion during the Yom Kippur War, tells me that he too has moths in his house.

His moths are on the lower level, and he says that to ensure that they do not ascend the stairs and eat his Gieves and Hawkes jackets, he has given them a small carpet to eat.

For if we give Germany Czechoslovakia and Poland, they'll leave France alone, won't they?

And so farewell, moths

Victory is ours.

Hiroshima

Short of burning the house down to get rid of the moths, the present course of action is as extensive as it can go. The loft conversion in this house has cupboards all around the eaves, into which I have crammed many many years of accumulated junk. The moth larvae have set up house here.

I have spent the past three days clearing this out, sorting out and hauling about fifty black bags down the 35 stairs to be stashed in the front garden from where I hope to persuade a young man with a van to take it to the dump.

I have found: letters dating back to the mid-70s that were yesterday's version of email, files, old magazines, large sets of my mother's Royal Albert dinner and tea services, tarnished silver, a suitcase full of clothes I last wore in the early 80s, when, without my understanding it at the time, I must have been actually thin.

A love letter to my father, not from my mother.

But mostly, just dusty moth-infested rubbish. And however long I keep going, there is always another box.

More fumigation. More vaccuming. And on Thursday the carpet cleaners are coming.

Lesson: Do not store old carpets.