Timshel, Shelley and Reuben depart for Scotland on the 8th of February.

We are off! We are away! Okay, we have not left the country yet but we HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING. We are out of our house. All those exclamation marks and capitalisation are due to my immense relief (and genuine disbelief) that the hell of moving is over. We are now convalesing at our friend Sarah’s house, lying prone on the couch, watching tennis in 40°C heat. Every now and then I am roused from my exhaustion by a feeling of immense jubilance, fear and freedom. I roll off my end of the couch, lunge at Timshel, and, grabbing him by the shoulders, shout “We have NO HOUSE!” Reuben, playing with pegs in the middle of the room, holds a peg up and shouts “Blaaaaammph”.

How can I capture the agony of the last few days? Imagine spending an afternoon wrapping your head in packing tape. Followed by an evening peeling the tape off your head. Slowly. Moving house was about that much fun.

Days and days of really hard physical work fuelled by reduced sleep (6-7 hours not enough when breastfeeding) and bad food (in a week we sampled the fine delights of BBQ chicken, pizza, pies, fish and chips, kebabs, more chips, and vietnamese). My muscles ached from lifting boxes, my ego hurt from having to ring up friends and beg for help/cars/trailers, and my brain hurt from trying to figure out whether a box that contained an anti-pasto platter, an umbrella, 36 pegs, washing detergent and my grandfathers polished stone collection should be labelled “Laundry”, “What the hell” or simply “A box”.