My mum - for reasons that are still a bit nebulous to me - went to a 'How To Be a Fun Old Woman' seminar last week.

Now I didn't think living in the sticks was that boring, nor did I think she was in need of any guidance. She never phones me to ask me whether I think she's amusing enough (whether I remember her login name for a site she hasn't visited in eons, yes). She is blissfully silent when it comes to questioning her drollness, her ebullience, her jolliness.

Some useful things were mentioned during the seminar, she said, but what did bother her was the advice to clear her house of clutter.

Not to attain the level of cleanliness that is part of the holy trinity in the Netherlands*

Not because it might become easier to find your keys/socks/offspring.

No.

The presenter advised this group of 50+ women - who vacation in the Norwegian wilderness, create some wickedly wild art, think nothing of 70 km bike rides through the pouring rain - to de-clutter their house. Because this way, after their death, clearing the house will be less of a burden to their children.

"I like my clutter," she said. "It reminds me of all the places I've been, the adventures I've had, the time I spent with your dad and you girls."

I just said that it seems a bit non-nonsensical to live towards death.

And that, when the time comes in another 40 years or so, I'll rent a great big skip.

Then again, I think I take after my mum.

(Inspired by Madame Gonzanza's Open Letter to Oprah: dingleberrylane.tribe.net/threa...c443b2 )
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* nl.youtube.com/watch