Monday, 25 August 2008

Moving House

Why does anyone ever do that? Is it worse if you’re a writer? Do we tend to try and hold on to things more?

I sort through books not wanting to get rid of them. I hang on to letters from old friends because I think they’re going to be some sort of company from me in my old age. I think it wise to hold on to all those padded envelops so that they can be used again.

It’s a desperate situation, though. We’re downsizing, even though we’re moving to a place where we’ll both have our own studies.

Everywhere is dust and decay. We remove two thirds of what we have and the third that’s left behind seems to take up more room than the three thirds did before. As we think of the dimensions of the new house, we have to strip more and more back.

I’ve decided that this week, as I’ve taken off time form the university, I’ll concentrate during the day on the physical side of sorting things out. it’s a Bank Holiday today. But later in the week, I’ll also take the time to make the necessary phone calls. I’ve done a few already.

I promised myself, though, that I’d spend a couple of hours each evening on my writing. I’ve had my laptop plugged in in the bedroom so that I could listen to a radio broadcast whilst I did the ironing. All right I’ll come clean : I was listening to The Archers omnibus. So, it’s still a good form of story, isn’t it?

I move my computer into my study and plug it in. No little light flickers on to say that it is running off mains electricity. We do all the experiments we can with swapping leads and fuses and establish, just five minutes after PC World has closed, that it is indeed the power pack that has died.

So, I’m currently typing away on an aging PC in my husband’s study.

Bank Holiday Mondays, eh?

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