All change

So this weekend I am moving from a large flat to 1 room in a small shared flat and I am using the opportunity to strip my life down to its bare bones and take the 'stuff' that's really important to me. What this has made me realise is that, in a rather cliche'd, Hugh-Grant-film-esque fashion, stuff isn't important at all.

I have had no trouble taking box loads of rather smart clothes, gorgeous books and armfuls of CDs to the local charity shops. They may wonder why I am throwing out most of last season's Jigsaw collection but I don't care. I never wear it. If you can't ride a bike in it (and let's face it mohair isn't always the best attire for mountain biking) then I don't want it.

With an armful of jumpers and jeans, one smart suit and a suitcase of bike kit I'm off. All the books i have read are in storage, the ones I haven't are in my office (which I now have to use rather than working from bed like I have been for months) and I don't even have a toaster to my name.

Do I mind? Well we are programmed to get to our twenties and 'buy house, fill house with husband and babies, stop having fun' and although I am itching to have somewhere I can actually call 'home', living simply and clutter-free does have it's benefits. I lead a totally selfish existence where my every intellectual or physical whim can be fulfilled without so much as a inquisitive glance at someone else. I want to be a perpetual student - I am. I want to ride and race my bikes as much as is humanly possible - I do.

And believe me, that's the only time I'll be saying 'I do' in the near future. The future is full of simplicity and I like it.