I have to confess that as Photo Friday entries go this is a rather poor effort; i.e. it isn’t all that well matched to this week’s theme – Junk. But, i) I ran out of time, ii) as a photograph (rather than a photograph depicting this theme) it’s ok, and iii) I can justify it, honest … well, almost ;-)

One of my oft-used expressions, directed at any or all of our four kids, is “don’t leave your junk all over the house”. And while this might sound a bit harsh – I’m normally referring to someone’s prize possession when I say it – it’s a comment born of frustration rather than an accurate deployment of the term.

The oldest two aren’t too bad, especially our ten year old, and our eight year old, despite littering the house with Barbies, Sylvanian families, Polly Pockets, and other assorted small plastic bits, will at least clear up after herself if asked.

Our youngest isn’t too bad either. She’s barely mobile, and just tends to pick things up and put them down somewhere else. Our two and two-thirds year old, on the other hand – who’s probably responsible for this shoe being in the middle of the kitchen (even though it belongs to her younger sister) – is a nightmare. Left to her own devices I reckon she could reduce a perfectly ordinary house to chaos, if not rubble, in a matter of hours. She leaves a trail of chalk, toys, crumbs, tissues, shoes, nibbled apples, oranges and bananas, juice, water, all of her clothes, and just about anything that can cause a mess or some other form of disruption, over the entire surface area of our house, ceilings excluded ;-)

So junk, in this instance, is that peculiar form of chaos that children bring to a house; the things that you trip over, slip in, impale yourself on, can never find when you need them – basically anything that’s someplace it shouldn’t be ;-)

On a side note: if you haven’t come across it yet, check out joe’s nyc, a new commentable (if that’s a word) version of Joseph Holmes’ wonderful blog.