Skip-edy taboo dah

We are moving out of the house in a couple of weeks, while some work is done on it to make it more civilised. I have hired a large container which is sitting outside waiting to be filled with all our belongings and furniture. By me. A small corner at the back has so far been filled with a few boxes and one dismantled bed. Actually not all our belongings are going into it. Some are going to the charity shop, some to the recycling facility, which used to be called the dump (or one of my favourite Scottish words, the cowp) and some are going in a skip and thence to the landfill. The skip arrived this morning. I am delighted with my skip and have been flinging stuff into it joyously but some of the people I know are a touch disapproving of it. I think skips may be the last taboo. But how, I ask, am I supposed to recycle the following:

The sweetest shoes that my children wore when they were first walking, gnawed to pieces by mice. A very smelly man-made fibre jacket left by our Polish au pair three years ago, also with evidence of mouse activity. Two broken plastic clothes airers. A gross of plastic hangers from clothes shops. A hundredweight of broken MacDonalds/stocking filler/free with a magazine toys. A carpet peed on by three species. Opened packets of dried chickpeas, flour and quinoa dating back to 2004. Single shoes and boots. Holey tights. Outgrown pants - clean but still second hand. Broken lamps. 1998 jam. Cracked plastic toyboxes. Half a ton of vacated plant pots. Stained soft toys. A wheel-less barrow. 59 miles of baler twine. A pedal-less, saddle-less bike.

I am filling the skip in continuous rain. I resolved never to mention the weather in my blog because it is boring so all I'm going to say is that I wonder if this saturated, sodden part of Scotland will be inhabited in a hundred years?

Better stop. Crud to chuck.