Getting rid of stuff cheers me up so much, I wonder why I don’t do it more often.

I tend to collect all sorts of things, just in case. Single-bed quilts, blankets and sheets, for instance, in case we have visitors with children. I even collected cot sheets, blankets and a small pillow, to use in a borrowed cot.

But we haven’t had visitors with children for a couple of years. More recently, all our visitors have been childless.

Besides, with the exception of a teenage visitor, all the kids have insisted on sleeping with their parents in the guest room. Not for them the drafty old office where the cupboards conceal scary monsters and the vampires growl and thrash around outside all night. Just like possums in fact.

As far as clothes are concerned, I’ve become quite ruthless. If I haven’t worn it for a year or two, and it’s not ‘classic’ or ‘vintage’, I send it off to a new home.

So with a small bag of clothes and a big bag of bedding, we drove to the op shop in Kyneton (that’s a thrift store in the US and a charity shop in the UK).

We parked right at the door and while my partner went off to shop for things we can’t buy in Daylesford, I decided to browse first and deliver later. It was busy for a Tuesday afternoon but the crowd soon thinned until there were only two of us left.

Within five minutes, I’d found a pair of blue moleskin trousers – good outdoors at this time of year – and a singlet top for Summer.

I was looking at the shoes when I heard one of the ladies behind the counter say to the other: ‘We’ll have to make sure we close on time. I can’t be late.’

I checked the sign on the door. The shop closed at 3.30. It was 3.28. No time, then, to try anything on. I handed over $6, retrieved the bags from the car and delivered them into the grateful hands of the volunteers. Immediately I felt lighter, less encumbered.

As for my purchases, the singlet top fits perfectly but the trousers, while they’re my size, are so tight I can’t even zip them. Like so many clothes in op shops, they must have shrunk in a too-hot wash.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.