Taking out the garbage

I found myself cleaning out our naff/kitsch water feature today, as created by the former owners of our house.

It was some job, about one hundred pebbles of varying sizes were at the bottom. Each one had to be removed and cleaned, the tank emptied of all its detritus, scrubbed and refilled.

Of course, I did the whole thing with rubber gloves. How gay is that? Washing up with them is one thing, but cleaning out a water feature? Gay, gay, gay. I hate getting my hands dirty or touching anything vile - and the water feature promised to be full of nasty surprises. There were all kinds of dead things in there. The nearer I got to the bottom, the worse it stank.

I hate metaphors when they're overused. You can hear it any morning on Thought For The Day on Today on Radio 4. It's very cringeworthy. The headmaster at my former comprehensive school was very good at metaphors, clichés, too. Every assembly would be choc-full of them. So, you see, I'm very wary of metaphors.

I could feel a metaphor rising up within me as I cleaned out the water feature today. Wouldn't it be nice if you could clean out the stinking mess in your life, throw out all that's dead, clean it all up and put everything back together again?

I wish I could.

Sadly, I tend to hang on to all the crap.

Any tips?

How do you empty the bins deep inside your soul? How do you take out the garbage?

Click here then choose info.