Friday 26th August

Here we go again!

Once more, a van has been borrowed and once more I'm filling it with my jun....I mean highly prized items, and my poor mother has agreed to host it all in one of the rooms in her house.

My spirits hover between happiness that there shouldn't be as much stuff and the fact that most of it is in boxes, and despair that I am moving yet again and that all my goods and chattels are going to be spread between two cities , 3 hours drive apart. It is a poignant reflection of my life at the moment, scattered to the 4 winds with no base and no place to call my own.

This time my 2nd son is rallying round - apart from being too bossy, he is a good lad and like his older brother, rallies round to the cause.

Although the furniture and items I have brought with me are fewer in quantity, there is still more than enough to mean two van trips to my mother's house. During the journey to and fro, my son and I pass an RAF base and begin reciting some of Churchill's speeches to each other. His fake voice is not as good as my impersonation, although I'm sure that my son's passion would have rallied the troops at that time, had I not been available.

Loading and unloading - books dispatched to the garden shed, then finally all is complete. However, not before I have driven over a manhole cover and broken it thus jamming a wheel in the sewer . Totally incapacitated, the van was clearly going no where and as I looked at it I wondered how on earth I was going to get it out. Amazingly, down a remote country lane with only a few houses around, a neighbour has the necessary jack to lift a heavy van.

Next time I move, I want it to be the last time, or at least the one before my final move. Already my resolve is cracking and compromise is beginning to creep in.