Unloading
At the Blackstock Road Recycling Centre I said goodbye to a thousand books this afternoon. Mostly they belonged to me though a few were Shirley's. Every one of my books had some lasting resonance - some personal value and it was hard to ditch them. I remembered them like long lost friends. Mostly they had just been mouldering in our attic.I hadn't even been up there in six years until the end of last week.. It was clear that the books were just filling space.and I needed to be ruthless. But getting rid of them certainly didn't make me feel good. In fact I felt I had somehow betrayed them. At the recycling centre there is a big green bin with a a roof and a tipping shelf. The idea is that you pop your books on that shelf and drop them into the void. Later the books are sorted and some end up being donated to charities while others are simply pulped. Unfortunately, as I approached the book bin I could see that it was already jam-packed. I had to borrow a long-hand...