Starting the clean up

St Patrick's was essentially empty when we bought it. In fact even the staircase to the choir loft had been removed so all that was left was a piano with half the felts damaged beyond striking a note, a black board, an old pool table with ripped felt, a cupboard, an table, a pot belly stove, and a sideboard covered in paint and with some panels providing lunch for resident borer. Over the years we added to this somewhat random collection with sofas, chairs, beds, a bathtub, a set of claw feet for the bathtub assuming we might one day have a bathroom in the building (now off the list of desired features) and some pots, pans and dishes. Basically the things you might find in a NZ crib anywhere. Then oddly, additional furniture appeared which we puzzled over and have finally decided probably came from our next door neighbour who sold his house and moved to Dunedin. We were sorry to see him go because he mowed the lawns and kept a good eye on the place for us which was extremely helpful when we were living a long way away. So now we are in clean up mode. Each week I bring a few bags of rubbish from the hall up to our house for the rubbish collection but soon I'll be down to the large stuff that will require a skip. We don't seem to have managed to stop the inward flow yet either. Earlier this month we attended a local auction of items from the Catholic Church Presbytery, interested in some church kneelers that possibly had a shared history with the hall and a few school desks that we thought would be fun to have since they tied in with the hall's history as a school. We missed out on the kneelers but did manage to buy four school desks in three different sizes. Then an old Conray heater came up, well I have always loved those heaters, big, and solid enough to sit on. I have spent almost entire Otago winters perched on a Conray. So I bid on it. And for five dollars we were the owners of the heater and also the previous lot the auctioneer threw in to get it off his books after it had been passed in. So now we can add a box of religious books to the items we need to get rid of. Anyone interested in a copy of "Why Wait for Marriage?", or "The Priest and Psychotic Personalities"?