Yesterday I rented a table at a car boot sale just outside Stockholm. The temperature had dropped nearly 10 degrees between Friday and Saturday. It was cold and rainy. Not the best conditions for an already reluctant dad.

My paternal grandmother died in 2020. Only now is my dad ready to let go of her dinnerware, glassware and ornaments. Storage was never the problem. My parents have both a summer house and an industrial property outside the city. The boxes still sat everywhere. My mother was tired of them. She got him to agree to try selling.

We unpacked set after set. Wine glasses, beer glasses, water glasses, schnapps glasses, champagne glasses. Four different sets of schnapps glasses alone. I know what they paid. It was a fortune. Yesterday it was worth absolutely nothing. After the sale we took the souvenirs to the recycling centre and threw them away. They had travelled a lot. Bangkok in the 1990s, before the crowds, was one of the trips. The souvenirs piled up.

I decided, standing there, that our son will not have to do this.

I have always preferred quality over quantity. We have one dinner set. One set each of white wine, red wine, champagne, water and beer glasses. One set of cutlery. They had three. That is the whole difference.

I still have weaknesses. Several handbags I have never used. They can be resold. The jewellery is limited and all Cartier. The Christmas ornaments from Georg Jensen and Swarovski are different. None of them have any real secondary-market value. I still love them. I stopped buying Georg Jensen because I already have more than fit on the tree. I still buy two or three Swarovski pieces every year. They cost around 1,500 SEK each. Apart from those I will not buy any more trinkets. I hope.

Our son will probably think we wasted the money on the ornaments. If a future daughter-in-law wants them, fine. If not, the boxes can go straight to the recycling centre along with the dinner set, the glasses and the cutlery.