WE have decided to make a home improvement, one which will necessitate the removal of a lot of our detritus whilst work is being carried out.

The thought of this is bringing me out in a cold sweat, even though the end result will be worth it, and I am already experiencing sleepless nights about the amount of stuff and clutter in our house.

It’s deeply ironic that this is bothering me, given that I am a lifelong hoarder and someone who is sentimental about the most ridiculous items.

I have little collections of things here and there, ferreted away, which remind me of people and of places, and which I couldn’t bear to be parted with.

There is my collection of empty Ben & Jerry’s ice cream tubs, for example. You may laugh in incredulity, but most of these tubs were collected during several trips to America I took many years ago, and are of flavours which were long ago discontinued.

For example, I need only glance at the John Lennon tub and I am taken immediately back to when my husband and I sat, eating the contents, outside a Walgreens pharmacy in Florida on our honeymoon.

The things that we do really need to get rid of are more pointless. They’re items we purchased for our home and have never used, clothes we do not wear, or bits and bobs we, despite our best intentions, will never make any use of in our home environment.

Rather than procrastinating by thinking, ‘I must sort that out’, the time has come to seize the day, grab several large bags and boxes, and donate it all to the nearest charity shop. I’d much rather they profit than we haggle over a few pounds at a car boot or similar.

Interestingly, our own clearout comes at a time when my parents are having insulation added to what was my bedroom in our family home in Northern Ireland.

This process has necessitated the removal of posters and so on in the shrine that is the room that I left when I was 18, and to which I never really returned, other than for holidays.

Of course I have told mum and dad I don’t mind any renovations they make – what they do with their house is their business - and I have once again apologised for the fact that in said room, there are many other boxes of my possessions.

But, as we all recognise, there is no way there is space in my husband and I’s house here for them at present, and so my parents are going to have to put up with the boxes for a while longer.

How many of us are in the position where some of our former belongings are still in our parents’ home, or where we are the people still looking after the possessions of our children long after they have left home?

Quite a few, she ventures hopefully?!