Farewell Lola Towers

The wonderful and perfect Lola Towers, August 2026

Before I left there were a succession of 'last times' - with the local Buddhist group, the Birmingham Buddhists and many other friends. My last U3A walk opportunity was cancelled due to the heat, and my last U3A board games opportunity was also cancelled due to the two leaders being busy elsewhere. I did manage to have lunch with UJ, who has just returned from Ukraine where she has spent most of her time since moving out about 9 months ago. She has persuaded her parents to apply for visas at last now that conditions at home are so much worse, and they may look for a place in Leamington.

Removal was delayed by a day, and while I thought this would give me some time to have a break I really did need that day for organising. I labelled everything with its destination room, sorted out all the keys (and only found two that I don't think belong to anything), separated out and labelled the things I didn't want them to take (like cleaning gear), and the things I agreed to leave for the new occupants. 

Then the team arrived bright and early, with boxes and tape and paper and bubble wrap, saw how organised everything was and asked me if I had a military background. Four of them took three and a half hours to pack and load everything I own into their truck, which also included disassembling a wardrobe and my desk right down to component parts. They went off and I took a break to have lunch then started cleaning, which took me four hours. When I was ready to go it turned out to be surprisingly easy to leave the house behind, and I arrived at Maternal Manor too tired to unload the car. I went to bed early, but couldn't sleep until the early hours, even though I was physically exhausted.

Next morning the truck arrived at Maternal Manor with just two of the removal men, one of whom was tasked with the unenviable job of reassembling the wardrobe and the desk that he'd reduced to matchsticks the previous day. He didn't do too badly; only a few unimportant pieces left over although one of the shelves in the wardrobe is the wrong way round which will bug me forever.

Now mum and I are completely surrounded by boxes, and it will take quite a while to get everything out and in its proper place. We spent an entire morning sorting through the towels and bedding to decide what to keep out of our joint collections. The item that always causes the most grief - my wireless printer - proved impossible to connect until I noticed that mum's printer cable could be used to set it up wirelessly via a USB cable, which sounds counterintuitive but I followed the instructions and it worked beautifully. It can't have been too bad a move if the worst thing so far is the stupid printer.

So that's that, the end of an era - more than 25 years in Leamington and I'm now a Londoner again, back living in the road where I lived throughout my school days.

Nearly there

Another from the Escher exhibition, London, August 2026

I had to sign some stuff in person with a witness and so did Lola II, but at last I was notified that the Compliance Department had given me the all clear and it was safe to exchange contracts with an agreed completion date. When exchange actually happened I was temporarily overcome with grief. This is actually going ahead, and after nearly 25 years I'm going to have to hand over to someone else my beautiful and perfect house, in its wonderful location, and move away. I can't take it back now.

Notifying institutions and changing addresses takes a surprisingly long time, and some accounts are very much easier to change than others. My broadband supplier was the least reasonable; car insurance costs more where I'm going; TV licensing have already worked out my refund. I've done about half the work on this. I've also been in touch with a few people that I'd like to meet before I go.

Maternal Manor is prepared for removals day as best it can be; all excess furniture has now left the premises and we've done quite a lot to clear cupboards and drawers. We haven't touched the kitchen yet - that will be a job for the first month after I move in and is likely to be challenging due to the amount of stuff I have and the kitchen already being full of mum's stuff. Then I went off to play badminton with the Oldsters, only to find that I got the day wrong and the hall was full of girls in leotards doing gymnastics. I have continued my search for a 'normal' badminton club and have one lined up for September that looks good.

In the middle of this there was an interlude at a party thrown by Lola II and Mr M, called Desert Island Desserts, where desserts were served that had been identified by guests as the one they would choose for their desert island (if they could only keep one). The desserts were delicious but my state of mind wasn't robust enough for the number of people and the amount of social chitchat required, so I had to take frequent breaks away from the throng.

Back home then, and back to the task in hand, trying to rid the house of even more unnecessary household items. A breakthrough came when someone agreed to take all the ring binders, lever arch files and plastic pockets that I have liberated from all my university and dietetic notes in the loft, and there are A LOT of them. I must remember to keep just a couple because I never want to have to buy any ever again. 

The annual national bowling competition began and I realised that I hadn't received my resident's pass to get me through security at the end of the road. They are saving money by employing volunteers instead of a security company, and the volunteers are so much stricter than the professionals were. They gave me a hard time about not having a pass but eventually agreed to arrange one for me, then challenged the man from the removal company who came to give me a quote, and wouldn't let my friend through at all when he came with his dog to go for a walk with me. The pass hadn't arrived by late afternoon so I wandered over to ask again, only to find that one of the security volunteers was my ex-boss from the Dietetics department at the hospital.

I have been surprised by my excitement at the partial solar eclipse. I think I have missed all previous opportunities to witness a solar eclipse, either because it was cloudy, I was otherwise engaged, in the wrong part of the world or who knows what. But I made a makeshift viewer out of a shoe box and had a good time projecting the image through a pinhole onto my wall.

The end of the week brought the British Heart Foundation van to collect some of the larger items of furniture that aren't going with me. They rejected a few things that I then took to the recycling shop at the tip. In the evening someone who described himself as a 'forager and chef' came to take away my fridge/freezer. When I retrieved all the documentation for it I discovered that it was bought in July 2000 - 26 years ago, and apart from cracks in a couple of the shelves it was still working perfectly. Then a local couple came to take the television and sound bar, which was quite a challenge. I had kept the box and the instructions but it was much heavier and more unwieldy than it looked and took three of us more than an hour to package it all up - they needed to make two trips. 

Just one more week now.

What I've been reading

The Invisible Man
by H. G. Wells

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"A scientist theorizes that if a person's refractive index is changed to exactly that of air his body does not absorb or reflect light, then he will not be visible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but cannot become visible again."

Obviously everybody knows about this story, but how many people actually know what's in it? I was completely unprepared for such a dark and violent tale, and have to conclude that this is the first time I have read it, which is very surprising indeed. Given the opportunities that invisibility might present, the author chooses to go nowhere near what I would have expected.

Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales
by P. D. James

narrated by Daniel Weyman

"It's not always a question of "whodunit?" Sometimes there's more mystery in the why or how. And although we usually know the unhealthy fates of both victim and perpetrator, what of those clever few who plan and carry out the perfect crime?"

A perfect book of short stories of murder that manage to be utterly different from each other. Sometimes the murderer and/or the murdered are introduced right at the start, sometimes they pitch up towards the end of the tale, and sometimes they aren't who you think they are. I really enjoyed this book.

Spider's Web
by Agatha Christie

narrated by Hugh Fraser

"‘Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?’ she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in her drawing-room. Desperate to dispose of the body before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician, Clarissa persuades her three house guests to become accessories and accomplices."

I was surprised to find this in the audio book library because I thought I knew a lot of Agatha Christie's work, but after I'd listened I found out it's an adaptation of a play she wrote. It's pretty good, and avoids many of the outdated tropes of her work, but that may be due to the work of the 'novelization'. Looking at the library again, there seem to be quite a number of her books that I haven't yet read...

Independence Day
by Richard Ford

"After the disintegration of his family, the ruin of his career and an affair with a much younger woman, Frank Bascombe decides that the surest route to a 'normal' American life is to become an estate agent in Haddam, New Jersey. Frank avoids engaging in life until the sudden, cataclysmic events of a Fourth-of-July weekend with his son jolt him back. "

For most of the book I really wasn't bothered. I didn't hate it, but wasn't engaged enough to care what happened next, which is why it's taken a long time to finish it. When I was about 90% of the way through it started to grow on me, and I've ended up thinking it's actually rather good. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and I'm starting to get a feel for what that is all about - literary excellence without necessarily being a page-turner.

The Eternal Legacy
by Sangharakshita

"An introduction to the vast range of Buddhist canonical literature. It covers all major sacred texts, summarizes their essential teachings and places them in their doctrinal and historical context."

This is an incredible resource that I couldn't have appreciated before now. Unlike Judaism, Christianity and Islam which only have a book or two of source material, Buddhism has a library of works describing the Buddha's life and teachings. Being originally an oral tradition and spreading throughout South East Asia, there are versions of the same books in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese so additions and losses can be tracked and some idea of authenticity is available. It is also an incredible scholarly achievement.

Birthday trip... and house move

Oxford, July 2026

It was my birthday at the end of July, and although I intended to spend it free of house-related activity, it wasn't quite possible in the end because of having to respond to enquiries about my listings of things for sale. But apart from this, I had a lovely day in Oxford, starting at the Weston Library for their exhibitions, then meeting Lola II and Mr M before we went to the Ashmolean Museum for a posh lunch on their rooftop restaurant. Well, it was mostly posh, but Lola II had secretly arranged with the waiter to provide a plate of special sandwiches. It was very confusing, but the waiter was impressed when I expressed my delight at Lola II's icing sandwiches - a taste of the distant past. There wasn't time for looking round the museum after lunch but it looked interesting and we're not sure why we haven't been there before, so perhaps on our next visit Lola II and I will spend more time there. It was interesting to reflect that on that next visit we'll both be coming from London.

Back to the matter in hand - someone came from a removals company to look round and quote, then that same evening I sold the huge TV and sound bar and also the chest of drawers. This was a relief because I'm happy to give everything else away, or have it taken away by the Council or the British Heart Foundation. Then I had the idea of offering the remaining furniture to the local LETS trading group, and some of them are interested, so I've been busy sending photos and making arrangements for viewings.

I headed off down to Maternal Manor with another car load of stuff. The original plan was to stay for another fortnight, but there's too much to do back home. I want another removals company to quote, but I still don't have an exchange date, and my solicitor keeps asking for more and more evidence that I'm not a money launderer - proof of this, statements of that. My buyers have completed on their sale so are now homeless with their goods in storage, so I started to feel confident enough to tackle the remaining large items of furniture. Unfortunately, the first date that Warwickshire District Council can come and take the huge sofa is after we hope to have completed, and Warks County Council suddenly suspended fridge and freezer collections at recycling centres. Luckily my buyers have agreed to help with this - obviously they don't want this to delay their move.

Somerset House, London, August 2026

I've been writing 'The Book of the House', a long document with all the details that someone might find useful when first encountering Lola Towers. Where the water stopcock is, the knack needed for locking the front door, why the catch on the hall door is upside down, where the light switch for the third bedroom is, that sort of thing. And at Maternal Manor we've made progress too - a local charity came and took away a surplus bed and chest of drawers, and we have put a chair outside in the hope that someone will want it and come and take it away. And we continue to investigate cupboards and drawers that haven't been looked in for many years.

I can't describe how glad I was when Sister D sat down to help me to plot out the history of Maternal Manor - when it was bought, how much was paid, how rent was set, what improvements were made and when and how much they cost. It has a very complicated timeline which makes my current process of compliance with anti-money laundering regulations look like a walk in the park. I shall need an accountant, but Sister D's work will make a huge difference. "I used to do this all the time," she announced breezily when I complained about how enormously difficult it all was, "and this isn't the worst by any means."

And I had a day out in London when I went with Lola II to see the M. C. Escher exhibition in Somerset House. When we were growing up there was a book on the shelf containing many of his drawings, including the famous ones with the tessellated creatures, the reflecting balls, the impossible waterfall and the everlasting staircase. We still have a print on the wall that dad made by photographing one of the pictures, projecting it onto a piece of paper then tracing and colouring it. Breach of copyright, probably. They had a few other examples of optical illusions in real life - well, we couldn't help ourselves, we have to try this sort of thing.

Escher exhibition, Somerset House, London, August 2026

Not much except the house move

Adhisthana, May 2026

After the sisterly trip I was looking forward to volunteering at the Warwick Folk Festival again. On Tuesday after a walk with a friend I squeezed in a few hours helping them set up the Radio Room, but although I thought I might be able to help out again on Wednesday, I found that much more of my conscious attention was needed by the house moving that I had anticipated or planned for.

My buyers contacted me to give me an updated schedule for their sale, and explicitly asked if we could tie in our completion date with theirs. So I had to be just as clear in saying that we don't yet have an exchange date and I would need up to four weeks between exchange and completion, so they should plan their move on that basis and I would go as quickly as I could. I had already left a message for my solicitor to make sure there was nothing outstanding.

While the solicitors had previously seemed responsive, it turns out that they did still need to be chased. When they came back to me I found out that a restriction had found its way into the Land Register entry stipulating that I wasn't allowed to sell without endorsement by a second person. Even more strangely, this stipulation could be satisfied by simply appointing a second person who would then endorse the sale. Step forward Lola II, who then had to engage with the horrible online system, and then we had to go back to the solicitors to challenge it when it started asking her for evidence of her income. That request was quickly withdrawn.

I became so preoccupied with emptying the house that it became difficult to concentrate on anything else - what if the huge sofa wouldn't fit through the doors? what if I couldn't sell the TV before I needed to move? what if... what if? After a couple of shifts in the Radio Room on Thursday and Friday I gave up any attempt to spend time listening to the music at the Festival but came home and sorted things that needed sorting. I got the eBay and other sales platform listings online and live, and then managed to book a collection of the larger furniture and household goods with the British Heart Foundation, which will be in August. This seemed to relieve a whole lot of stress.

The remaining 'big' items that need to be sold rather than given away are a chest of drawers and my humungous television and sound bar. The TV and sound bar are now listed on eBay and local platforms, but I also offered them locally on a film-going WhatsApp group and to the LETS trading people. This is the one thing that there really isn't space for at Maternal Manor, but is worth a few hundred pounds so difficult to reconcile myself to giving it away. Fingers crossed for a buyer before I have to move.

Adhisthana, May 2026

My last shift in Comms at the Folk Festival was very busy for all the wrong reasons. At about 10.30 a.m. a message came in that there had been an explosion and fire in the campsite, which turned out to be a gas canister that had overheated, and there were people who had been injured. The fire was put out very promptly by campers in the vicinity, which was a huge relief because the whole campsite was dry as tinder and with quite a brisk breeze it could have been terrible. The Comms team was the main point of contact for medics and external services like the fire engine and ambulances, security, health and safety, and the festival directors. An air ambulance also turned up and landed, but in the end it wasn't needed for transporting casualties. 

The main difficulty we faced was that the location was about as far as it could have been from the Radio Room, and reception for radio comms was patchy at best and sometimes impossible. Everything else seemed to work quite well and the injured people were taken to hospital quite quickly. It really highlighted something that I'd been aware of for a while: that the whole festival relies on volunteers even at its most critical points, and is balanced on a knife edge - any stress anywhere, whether as drastic as this or just a failure of power or water, or a lost child, or festival goer with difficult behaviour - would be enough to cause a catastrophic situation. We were lucky this time, but being unable to communicate properly via the radios really must be addressed.

Back to the house-selling situation: I had a few messages about the TV and sound bar, but no definite offers. I continued to dispose of things from Lola Towers and Maternal Manor - another trip to Action 21's Reuseful Centre, and I noticed a post from the Library of Things suggesting that they'd be interested in old-fashioned cassette players, of which I have two, and so I took them in. This means that it was also time to get rid of the last few tape cassettes that I held back when I gave away the majority via Facebook. I was about to consign them to landfill when I came across the message from 2½ years ago from the person who took the last lot, so I offered him this lot too and he was delighted to take them!

My solicitor came back asking for evidence of my wealth at the time when I bought the house. I can't imagine anyone keeping bank statements or payslips for 25 years but it's futile to complain, so they are having to make do with my recollection of the situation back then. The next thing was to give them 12 months of bank statements because I'm not in work or receiving benefits or a pension. This is all about anti-money laundering (AML) guidelines, and when I had the temerity to ask how long it would take I was told: "[we] will be unable to exchange until the file is signed off and I would advise that to comply with AML requirements [the Compliance Department's] review will be very thorough." So there.

Meanwhile the couple who are buying the house came round, and seem very nice. We went room by room and I pointed out some of the quirks of the house; they mentioned that they are planning to climb Kilimanjaro at the end of August and would very much like to complete before this. Like a broken record, I told them again that I'm doing all I can to move things forward but I'm not prepared to set a date for completion before we exchange contracts. Mr Celery rang too, and will do what he can. Moving house is definitely becoming a reality, and I'm aware of having to manage with a continuous background level of stress. Hopefully it won't go on too much longer

Wales, June 2026