Kayt Turner: 'And what of all those love tokens? Obviously you keep them hidden from your spouse…'

NIPPY SWEETIE: KAYT TURNER
HOW long would you keep something? I'm not talking about anything like milk, obviously. Although I have been in some houses where milk is kept far, far too long. Hence the reason I only ever drink black tea and coffee. No, I'm talking about cards, mementoes, keepsakes. Y'know, stuff.

This is the time of year when we are all urged to de-clutter our lives. Get rid of the junk in our homes – so the theory goes – and we will be calmer, less harassed individuals, just by dint of having less stuff.

Part of me agrees with that – the part that haunts Lakeland and John Lewis looking for storage boxes and increasingly bizarre shapes and sizes of Tupperware containers. I love the idea of a place for everything and everything in it's place. The problem with me is that I do mean everything.

I have a pathological need to have one of everything nearby 'in case'. Who knows when you will need the emergency bathplug? There's a perfectly good travel iron mouldering in a storage box on top of the wardrobe, waiting for the call. And who doesn't have two or three spare hairdryers? You may laugh, but it's not funny when you start to smell smoke and only one side of your head is dry.

Things like that are understandable. Just because you don't use something every day, doesn't mean that you wouldn't hold on to it. It's the other stuff – the cards, programmes, kids' drawings. How long are you meant to hold on to all that junk? The first couple of drawings are cute, and rightly take pride of place on the fridge door. But are they just binned and replaced with the newer drawings as they flood in from nursery?

I know people who have them all professionally framed and hung on their walls. Given how prolific their nippers are, they're going to run out of wall space pretty quickly. Or do you create a special folder to keep them all in? And if you do, what then? Are you just waiting until the precious little darlings are Turner Prize winners so that you can then sell the lot for a small fortune and retire to the Bahamas? I know your pension might not be the most secure thing on Earth, but banking on that is a bit of a long shot, don't you think? And what of all those love tokens from your beloved? Obviously you keep them hidden from your spouse, but how long do you keep them for? We are forever reading stories of caches of faded love letters that have turned up in some attic somewhere, detailing a long-ago love affair. How desperately romantic, we think. In this day of text messaging and e-mail, shouldn't we hold on to every physical expression of devotion that we receive? But does that mean every birthday, Valentine, anniversary, congratulations and good luck card? And what about the little cards of apology that come with floral declarations?

I suppose it's okay if you only go out with him for a few months – there won't be too many of them and you may well get rid of everything when you split up. But I've been with Mr Turner for nearly a quarter of a century (makes me a wee bit giddy thinking of that) so I've got loads of cards – especially those little ones. Am I meant to keep them all? Forget a red ribbon to tie them all up, I think I could set up my own archive of apology.