11 moves in 7 years - what a load of rubbish!

YOU would imagine there are few places where a man could feel intimidated. Finding yourself surrounded by a couple of bouncers feeling the worse for wear in a Ladyboys' bar might be one - but since I don't drink, that's pretty unlikely!

However, shopping in Ann Summers or the lingerie department of a store would be one. Surrounded by spotty, pre-pubescent geeks in a computer store would be another, closely followed by a Klingon-speaking motor mechanic trying to explain why you will need a second mortgage to pay for a seemingly innocuous repair bill.

But how about those household waste recycling centres, or rubbish dumps as they're known in simple, plain English? Now these certainly are testosterone testing grounds where as soon as you reverse into the parking bay you feel the unsympathetic eyes of those cigarette smoking, luminous jacket clad rubbish sifters casting judgement on you and your garbage.

The only similar experience is a supermarket check-out girl who can tell you've sneaked in the packet of flavoured condoms disguised amid a pot pourri of weekly shopping. You know she is going to ask an assistant for a price check on the condoms!

I've just returned home from our local dump. The sense of relief once I'd driven out of this unwelcoming hell hole having passed this smelly Krypton Factor-like test was palpable.

Which bin to put your rubbish in? - household waste is the default position, lest you get an admonishing finger and grunt from the stern-looking official who directs you to green waste, metals, cardboard, wood; in fact more categories than on a Trivial Pursuit board! The whole dump experience fills this sad person with unusual, yet tremendous anxiety.

I've been to numerous rubbish dumps, but I still feel as if I walk around the cars and the trucks with 'L' plates on my back. There must be some sort of nightclass experienced folk go to. You can tell them as they strut around between the waste bins, waving their rubbish in the air, an unnerving air of confidence about them. "Look at me, getting rid of this concrete while I build a new conservatory in just one day. Anneka Rice, eat your heart out!"

For me, I'm moving again. It's my 11th move in seven years. Surely by now I qualify for a Blue Peter or Cub Scout badge in removals and a new address book for my friends.

I rented a van yesterday to begin moving my gear from Hampshire to Eastbourne. White van man, egh?! As someone not used to driving vans, you start off so gingerly, looking in all your wing mirrors, sticking to the speed limit, and be careful on the road. By the end of the day, you're throwing the van around and are like all the other reprobates.

You can certainly detect the hostility on the road. No-one, and I mean no-one let's you out, motorists will speed up towards you on roundabouts and cut in front of you. Crikey, talk about pressurised driving.

But I've now got used to this moving malarky. Last autumn, I spent £700 on paying furniture movers to deliver my gubbins - a lot of stuff, and I mean "stuff", which has trailed around in boxes, never looked at and stuck in a loft. Stuff like old photo albums, scrapbooks bearing cuttings of my first published newspaper articles some 30 years ago, a Persian carpet which was a gift from colleagues in Bahrain 20 years ago, and books which I've not read for over decades. Sentimental garbage.

Well, enough is enough. ELEVEN moves, SEVEN years! This time the cost of the move was a tenth of how much I forked out last autumn. But now, newly married, was time to get rid, to downsize, time to be ruthless.

So for the past couple of weeks, the Eastbourne pile has been put to one side; any clothes not worn in the past six months has gone into black bin liners, I'm even getting rid of old running shoes, which is a real wrench.  I did think about car booting a lot of the junk, but could I be bothered? And who would really want a second hand pair of smelly size 10 trainers with 500 miles of running on their soles?

Part one of the move to Eastbourne with my boys in tow went pretty well. It cost me a couple of chocolate sundaes at a delightful seafront ice cream partner.

And then part two this morning with the dump run was really a testing experience and a bit of a watershed getting rid of so much of my lfe which has trailed round with me from loft to loft.

I hate all this recycling. To be fair, I can never be bothered with it. When you see how wasteful the rest of the world is, I wonder what difference it makes. Does it matter whether I recycle that plastic bottle or coke tin, or just bin it?

But under the eagle eye of the intimidating rubbish sifters, clearly looking for a few bargains themselves, you had to put the right rubbish in the right bin.

The rest of the gear; washing machine, fridge/freezer, sofa and book cases will just be palmed off to a charity shop in the coming week.

 It's been a cathartic experience, but hopefully I won't be returning to the dump anytime soon.