Over a month without a post - pitiful I know! Lame excuse, but life has been pretty crazy busy over the last month, and mainly due to a gypsy relocation - that's right me and my little caravan got all packed up and moved house. And what a painful process moving always is - lucky it is a lot like child birth in that you forget how hideous it is as soon as the last box is unpacked, otherwise we really would never move house again, and they would be taking me out of my current abode in, well, a box.
I find that, without fail, halfway through every moving process I vow to never buy another thing I can not consume, and contemplate leaving the rest of my crap to the next poor occupier, as I push seldom worn clothes and never read books into straining cartons. As per usual, I found long lost (and forgotten) socks and hair pins coexisting peacefully in the forest of hair and dust swirling under my bed. Down sofas were a myriad of lighters and pens - both items long thought to be extinct in our house hold, and behind bookshelves a singular bauble or Quality Street - remnants of a festive season long passed. Successful packing I find starts with sorting everything by type, ensuring that books are in one box, toiletries in another, a bag for shoes etc. However towards the end I always find there are items that missed their boxes sealing that now end up in an ever increasing pile of jumble that I no longer want or need. But as I have already packed its mate in another box, or promised it to someone who has failed to collect it I know I am going to have to make the ultimate moving error - a miscellaneous box. Filled with batteries that may or may not be flat, long obsolete phone chargers, mismatched earrings and forgotten coffee cups. I know the likelihood is that it will move with me, unopened, into eternity.
Unpacking, for me anyway, is a far happier prospect - I love rediscovering my possessions in a new environment. Putting pictures on walls, and loading shelves with trinkets gives old mementos a new lease on life. This move was even more exciting than usual - for I was moving from a room reminiscent of Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs into an Olympic sized boudoir. My double bed, swaddled in layers of violet, lavender and plum, seems endless and I can lay in it for hours enjoying my fourth floor view of Mary Poppins-esque London chimneys. I revel in the fact that it takes me more than four steps to cross to the door, and I have so much cupboard space (comparatively) I am tempted to store one cardigan per shelf. The paint is peeling around the windows, the carpets probably witnessed the days of Thatcher and I am not mad for cream walls, but none of it matters - it's huge and it's mine! Home, for the moment, is certainly where my heart is.
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