Too many jackets?

Neither of us is particularly observant, so we tend to get used to the status quo, whatever that might be, forgetting to do anything about it. Over the winter, several jackets hang on the coat rack in our living room. We were still using light jackets in early April, but have not needed any since we returned to Cyprus early in May after our UK visit. However, somehow it didn't occur to either of us to move them somewhere else for the summer.

Until this morning. Actually it started yesterday when I put a load of laundry on, and realised that now we're wearing shorts and tee-shirts, I wasn't going to fill the machine. So I looked around for something else to add to the load, and decided to wash one of the jackets. Then I thought that perhaps today (Saturday) I'd do an extra load of laundry, and wash all the rest, then put them away in one of our closets for a few months.

So I removed them all, and the umbrellas, leaving a rather empty coat rack with nothing but sun hats:


I put two kagoules (waterproof light jackets) away at once as they're not washable. And I put away my warm winter jacket, one I've had for at least twenty years, but which I hardly ever wear as it doesn't often get cold enough. Everything else went in the wash.

Except that it was two entire loads. Just for jackets. Just for two people. This seems to me a little over the top. And while I forgot to take a picture of the overloaded coat rack before I removed them, I did take a photo of the jackets hanging out to dry:


That's two very light-weight zip-up hooded jackets of mine, one denim jacket that used to be Richard's but which I appropriated, and two fleeces of mine, plus three of Richard's fleeces, and his black body-warmer. All of which we did wear in the winter and early spring at different times. But somehow nine jackets - indeed, twelve including the three I put away without washing - seems somewhat excessive. Particularly as we have a few others that never left the closet, oh, and the one I washed yesterday.

And no, we don't buy clothes if we can help it. None of these jackets or fleeces is new. Somehow clothes, like other clutter, seem to accumulate in our house.

Rather like the large number of sun-hats now hanging on the coat-rack, which don't even include the ones Richard keeps in the boat for sailing.