It’s important to state that I am the most insufferably sentimental person I know.

There are old birthday cards collecting dust in my jam-packed cupboards, stuffed toys – their colours long-faded – sitting in my bedroom despite their prime cuddling years over, while gifts handmade by friends I no longer talk to take up real estate on my cluttered shelves. You couldn’t pay me to part with any of them.

My apartment is chock-full of these nostalgic knick-knacks – which makes dusting incredibly labour-intensive. I can even pinpoint exactly when and where I got each one.

The hot-pink alpaca teddy on my bookshelf? I won it in an arcade game in Japan a decade ago – first try! There’s a coffee-stained print of Matisse’s Blue Nude II I found on the side of the road with my first roommate, still hanging proudly on my wall. A One Direction T-shirt I bought as a teenager at one of their last concerts remains in my weekly pyjama rotation, despite it no longer fitting........

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