'There's light at the end of the tunnel, and I'll raise my glass to that'

Piers Motley-Nash (Image: Piers Motley-Nash)

It's been almost three weeks since our 1650 lot sale and we can finally see the end of shipping to all the online bidders. It's been a mammoth task, with extra staff to parcel up. In addition there have been house clearances and in order to maintain some sanity I volunteered for a couple of days clearing a two bedroom flat in Budleigh Salterton.

Occasionally there are clearances which are exceptional for one reason or another and this was one of them. In this instance it was eight double wardrobes and additional chest of drawers filled with one lady's clothes. In another life she would have rivaled Imelda Marcos.

We estimated 800 sweaters, 800 pairs of trousers and maybe 400 complete outfits. Her shoe collection was also quite exceptional as were the roughly 50 pairs of cruise slippers from P&O, Royal Caribbean and the like. Many of the items were new with labels and most looked 'as new'.

What was interesting, having talked to the neighbour was that she always wore the same outfit. Maybe the wardrobes were filled with outfits worn for just one day each when she was on one of her numerous cruises?

It is strange what makes each of us tick and how we cope with life. At a rough estimate there was £150,000 of clothing and apart from a little jewellery and a car the rest of the contents were valued at just a couple of hundred pounds!

Needing further escape from the post auction world I also found myself delivering some purchases to a gentleman in Ottery before finishing early and managing to get Billy, our labrador, out before the sun set. It was one of the rare dry days as we headed for Steamer Steps in Budleigh.

In people watching mode it was interesting to see who was out and about in these Covid times.

There were two young couples walking together and on my return from the far west of the beach had nestled themselves down with some blankets as the sun was descending.

There were two older ladies walking with their dogs, a man with his kids throwing stones into the sea (something Billy took great interest in).

We are all doing what we can in this latest of lockdowns to find some normalcy and we're all weary, especially our doctors and nurses. For some mental health is a huge problem and when you hear of NHS staff being abused on social media we wonder what is going on that are heroes are now being threatened by deniers.

What seems clear to me is we must stand up for our NHS staff, but their abusers are also in need of help with coping with the unreality of the situation we are all facing.

As I approached the West End Kiosk at the bottom of Steamer Steps a gentleman was sipping a beer from his Belgian style glass and I nodded to him and mentioned that he was in the perfect place to see the sun going down.

As I said, we are all coping with this in the best way we can and, with many wandering around in a state of shock, it'll take some time before any of us feel normal again.

Thankfully there is, like the end of our stack of shipping from the last sale, a true sense that by the end of this year we can return pretty much to normal and I'll raise my glass and my sleeve to that!