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.