The council skip cometh.
Fifty two items of tat we loaded onto that rusting communal bucket. We decided to take 13 back, in the hope there may yet be someone on ebay who wants a one-legged Action Man with a stutter, a bird cage ladder with four rungs missing (a must for budgies who take really big strides) and a blender without the blades: we think the latter would make an excellent executive toy for high-powered businessmen who find it relaxing to watch vegetables spin very quickly.
"You can't chuck those out," I'd protest as Julie fished the mountain of lame and rusting items from our shed. "They've got a lot of memories attached to them."
"What - four tubes of haemorrhoid cream?" she snapped.
I didn't say they were particularly good memories.
"That's a perfectly good skateboard," I moaned.
"It's only got two wheels," she pointed out.
I know. It's a 'must' for really advanced skateboarders.
"And those stepladders collapse as soon as you put a foot on them."
Exactly. I'm counting the days until him-over-the-road borrows them.
We also helped ourselves to 12 pieces of junk flung by fellow parishioners onto the skip, including one that's never been out of the box, which we think is either a bit of a computer, a really sophisticated fan or a bomb discarded by a member of the Taliban who was worried about littering.
It's got a brand new plug on it, anyway.
"Look at this!" shrieked She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, almost immersed in the mountain of rubbish. "Someone's thrown out a fondue set."
I gently pointed out it was a welding iron and assorted rods: eat a piece of cheese off that and you'd never open your mouth again - and the blue flash as the welder hit your fillings would temporarily blind dinner guests.
We had the set, anyway, for an aged aunt who has shown a belated interest in DIY. She put up a picture last week. "Hang the welder from your zimmer frame," I mouthed slowly to the octogenarian, "so it's there when you need to carry out running repairs."
"But remember," I warned darkly, "not to stare at the sparks. We don't want your cataracts getting any worse, do we?"
You can judge an individual by their rubbish, I say: it betrays their lifestyle. Who would've thought Mrs Timmins, aged 86, used a hula-hoop. And so soon after her hip replacement.
Who on earth discarded those fetish undergarments for public view? Mounds of shiny, semi see-through knickers held together by Velcro...sorry, my mistake. They're disposable nappies.
"I took home something really good last time the skip came," said Colin.
What was it?
"A skip."
It's been two days now and they haven't carted the skip away. I think the council is simply waiting for us to empty it for them.
Exhausting as the exercise was, at least it helped overcome my fear of entering our garden shed: a dark, dank, hellish place crammed with the most appalling household jetsam. The only thing that stops it being a landfill site is the roof. When the roof blew off last winter, the clouds of gulls were amazing.
I feared it may be a breeding ground for rats, but, on reflection, they'd probably want to rear offspring somewhere a little tidier. A closer inspection revealed they were six-year-old chocolate buttons on the floor, not rodent droppings.
Mind you, you're never more than six feet away from a rat, according to a report in The Times. Imagine how that must make astronauts feel! And a single rat can produce 1,000 off-spring: just think how many a married one churns out.
"We HAVE got rats," warned Julie, as she grabbed another bundle of rubbish. "Look, there are teethmarks all over this toilet brush."
"That may be me," I mumbled, colouring slightly.
After an uncomfortable silence, I added: "It was my first and last chicken tindaloo - OK!"