Well it's been and gone. Since the begining of the year my aunt Anne and I had been planning a Grand Charity Event at my parents' old house in Oxford. On Saturday we had it, and it went rather well.

The idea was that I've inherited way more stuff than I need now or will ever need. Books, pictures, crockery -you name and we've got it (twice!). Whatever I did with the house I was going to have to clear out most of it. Rather than getting a house clearance agency in the idea hit me that we could have the mother of all car-boot sales in the house itself where everything still on site was for sale, for charity. I had the idea round at my aunt's house as we were discussing her fundraising efforts for OXPIP so they were the obvious candidates. June 3rd was the date selected and so I've had 6 months to slowly go through the house and find all the things that I wanted to keep or pass on to friends and family. It turned out to be just the right period of time - not too long to go on for ever and not too quick to keep me in Oxford at every free moment.

The success of the sale was largely down to my aunt's sterling work. She organised a team of helpful volunteers (thanks everyone!!), brought in a celebrity guest (thank you Geraldine Peers from BBC South Today) to open the event and masterminded a superb media offensive. On friday there was a story about the sale and a big picture in the Oxford Times and on the day itself she was on Radio Oxford spreading the word. It worked! When I opened the doors at 10am the queue was 30-40 people long.

There are pictures on my flickr account but here are a couple:


So my old Marillion picture disks didn't sell. But pretty much everything else did. It was absolutely amazing. We had fantastic weather which obviously swelled the crowds and they were in a mood to buy. One woman cleaned me out of sporting equipment buying a cricket bat, a pair of 200cm skis and two fishing rods! All the pictures went, all the crazy african carvings, loads of books, tea pots, china, napkins, clothes. Like I said amazing.

The total raised was absolutely staggering. I believe we've banked over £5,500 in cheques and cash for OXPIP! When you add on the 28% gift-aid bonus on the cheques we took then that must be over £6,000. Wow.

Best of all is the knowledge that mum and dad would be so chuffed with the idea, and especially the result. In fact a number of people came to see me on the day, people from the road and the church who knew my ma and said how much the event reminded them of her - it was just the sort of thing she would have done. I don't hope for more than that.