BAD weather has its compensations sometimes. Instead of spending time out in the sunshine or on the beach or tweaking out weeds in the garden we sometimes have to stay inside and do all those boring jobs which have been put off for a decade or two.

So it was on Sunday my son-in-law stated firmly that he was going to clear out the garage. On his own.

This last statement was fairly obsolete. Of course he was going to do it on his own. The rest of us have developed tunnel vision when it comes to the garage. We just walk a straight line in and out to the tumble drier and ignore the rest of the accumulating junk.

I have great regard for people who have a tidy garage. Indeed I have even more regard for people who have achieved that blissful state of having a garage you can actually get the car into. Our garage was like that on the afternoon we moved in to the house, a situation which continued until at least 6pm that evening.

Garages are like Bermuda triangles. They seem to suck things in from the surrounding area. I swear half the stuff cluttering ours has arrived mysteriously in the middle of the night. How else could we have nine little glass stirrup cups, two without handles, and no sign of the bowl? Where does that strange three legged table which won't stand up straight unless pushed into a corner come from? And could anyone possibly have bought that hideous flower jug covered in green warts?

The garage has been cleared on numerous occasions but always fills up again without any apparent effort on the part of the household.

Son-in-law, however, was not daunted and announced that he was going to make a list of things to keep, things to go to a charity shop or the clothing bank in Callington car park or things to go to the dump with perhaps one or two things to go in the bargain ads.

One never likes to kick a good man when he's up and running but upon hearing of these lists my daughter and I did have to point out that we would be vetting them closely before he had a chance to act upon them. Very closely. And that his lists and our lists would almost certainly bear little resemblance to one another.

There are certain areas where the gulf between men and women is as wide as an ocean.

Men, for instance, cannot possibly understand that even if you haven't touched a certain object tucked away under three old carpets and half a dozen tea chests for at least two and a half years it doesn't necessarily mean you don't want it. Quite the opposite, you know it's there and within a few days, weeks, months you intend to take it out, mend it, repaint it and find somewhere for it to go. Probably.

Men, or man, in this case, couldn't fathom why we needed nine spare dining room chairs. Women, of course, know that this is 'in case someone drops in' or rather if you count the kitchen chairs, 'in case 16 people drop in unannounced and expect a sit-down meal'. Actually, 'in case' objects take care of a lot of junk space, I once hung on like grim death to about 22 assorted and ill-matching grapefruit dishes, the glass sort on a short stem in which you plonk half a grapefruit with a cherry on top, or not, as the case may be with the cherry. I knew the likelihood of ever needing 22 grapefruit dishes for presumably 22 grapefruit eaters at any one time, or 11 if they were gluttons for a whole grapefruit each, was remote but you never know. They've gone now, but I'm still awaiting the day when I can say 'I told you so'.

Men also tend to have rather optimistic ideas of what you can sell. My former husband, a Celt to his very bones, would set aside a pile of things which he was convinced would go like hotcakes. I did have to point out that a pushchair with three wheels was hardly likely to be viewed as the bargain of the century and that very few people actually buy half empty cans of paint, especially in duck egg blue with a skin on top. We had to establish a set of rules - ie ask yourself 'would you part with hard earned cash for it?' and 'would you take it even if I offered it free?' If the answer to both these was 'no' then onto the junk pile earmarked for the tip they would go.

I do remember a lovely story from a friend whose husband felt they should sell their children's cot, which had done its duty by their three youngsters and was well past its best. She was fed up with falling over it in the garage, he said there were many year's of wear left in it for someone, despite a missing couple of rails and the fact that the sliding mechanism didn't work.

One day she decided that stealth was called for, and heaved it up the road to a friend's house, asking if she could leave it out for the dustmen. Yes, you've guessed it. Hubby spotted the cot by the bins, brought it home and proudly told my friend that he could now provide the missing bits for the one they had.

But back to the present day. Another rule you must establish in garage clearance is 'strike while the iron's hot' or rather 'strike while the black bin liners are full'.

As soon as bin liners are packed to the top with unwanted clothes, having been thoroughly vetted by their previous owners, drive immediately to the clothing bank without pausing for so much as a sip of Tetley's.

Otherwise the dreaded second thoughts will come in. Such as 'maybe puce will come back into fashion, I'll lose four stones in the near future and velvet drainpipe trousers and a matching blouson will be just the think for next year's Christmas party'. No, unless you want to be the only person ever caught attempting to climb in through the metal drawer in the clothing bank and have to explain it to a magistrate, you must accept that once the bag of old clothes is in the boot it's gone forever.

Another good rule is never to let any child, whatever its age, near any garage clearance especially if you're trying to sneak toys and games out of the house for a charity shop. Because no matter how many times you try to explain that some poor little Romanian child will get so much pleasure from playing with his or her old farmyard set and slightly dented dolls he or she will suddenly remember that this is their most favourite toy on earth and they wouldn't part with it for all the tea in China, well maybe not tea, but certainly chocolate.

I'm sure we have all been to table top sales or car boot sales and seen mothers with a little group of children lining up toys for sale. Then, when someone leans over and picks up a gruesome looking doll a small toddler suddenly starts screaming blue murder and pathetically grabs hold of the toy, leaving you, the adult, to engage in a one-sided tug-of-war. It's not much fun walking away with an Action Man or a Barbie you have bought for 50p with the shrieks of an anguished child in your ears. Walk quicker I say.

To conclude, by the end of Sunday a fair old miracle had been wrought in the garage and my son-in-law staggered exhausted into the kitchen holding a strange looking limp plastic object in orange and black stripes.

'What shall I do with this blow up cat?' , he said.

We told him, poor love.