Uneasy lies the head here.

From writing nothing I’ve gone to scribbling screeds on the backs of bills, old paper bags, and finally a notebook dug out from the pile of ‘pending’ junk in my bedroom. I feel better for it so Chillsider, who brought me back from the brink, was right - blogging is good for the health. The writer's block was caused by a mind-freeze moment. One of those crashes old computers used to do when internet things happened too fast for them.

Two weeks to go before I move and, though in some ways it should, if all goes smoothly, be the easiest of the many, many moves I’ve made, I’m finding it unexpectedly traumatic. Probably the thought that it might be my final move before the Last Great Removal to the Hereafter isn’t making me more cheerful. Some folk seem to like the idea that they will settle into a house and never move again. I don’t. It is in my genes to want to keep moving. My maternal grandfather was a Mover. He sold one house on the same day they took possession of it and before my grandmother had had time to unpack. He went to the pub whilst she was emptying tea chests (women’s work in those days was it?) returned after an hour or two, a bit tipsy, and told her to reverse into packing mode because he'd sold the house and farm to a bloke he'd met at the bar. No need for HIPS or Estate Agents in those days, they just shook on it.

I still remember the exotic smell of tea chests. It helped to give each move a promise of faraway places and adventure, but they could also deliver nasty cuts from strips of metal round the edges.

Every move I have made since I left the family home to go to college felt like a step along the way to something better. Wishful thinking it may have been , but I’ve not been good at living in the NOW. I am the personification of divine discontent (Who first used that phrase? Sometimes Wikipedia just lets you down totally. When I tried to find the source of it Wiki came up with some American band.) Misguided I may have been but moving does bring with it welcome fresh air to life. It’s not a bad substitute for travel when travel isn’t a viable option.

In search of the indefinable, possibly the ineffable, I have moved my children 12 times since we left Brussels in 1987. It’s a wonder they are the relatively stable beings they are today. My eldest daughter, when she was very young, hated moving, she was even disturbed by a trip back to England to see grandparents. Once she knew it was about to happen she would pack her own little suitcase and sit on it in the hallway, as if we might forget her. Possibly the repeated experience desensitised her - or showed her she could cope. Not a bad result that.

We gyrated around their school so they didn't have the nightmare of new classmates to face each time, with one exception when I attempted to get them a more formal education than the local Steiner school was offering. We headed off into the unknown to start them as day pupils in the very prep. school the g’son is now attending (in those days it was up in the hills on its own instead of being, as it is now, on the same campus as the main school.) That didn’t work out and we had to retreat back down to sea level because they drooped like cut tulips after just a few short weeks.

Though most of the moves were probably quite unnecessary, a product of my restlessness and VERY wasteful of resources, I remember some quite fondly. The very repetitive nature of the event meant rituals developed. Sophie, the quietest child, took on the role of cat comforter. The cat, who was a huge, wise, and loving tabby tom, accepted the comforting gracefully, knowing it comforted the little girl to be cuddling and cosseting him. The other two were more physically involved with unpacking, walking the dog, exploring the new area, stopping the dog from chasing cows in nearby fields, or dragging furniture around until it was where I wanted it. They were also tearingly anxious to get their own rooms organised once rooms had been allotted to everyone’s satisfaction. At the end of the day we always sat down to a meal together which usually I cooked, because that’s what I liked to do, but on Moving Day there had to be a treat, and though there were few takeaways locally in those days, fish n’chips, pizza or a Chinese meal (the ultimate in sophistication) did feature if we were close enough to an outlet. As it was the first meal in the new house a bottle of wine was opened from which the three of them had small glasses to celebrate our arrival and I had a large glass (or two) to buck me up. Then I read rather more chapters than usual of some already well-known story until we were all falling asleep against each other in my bed. ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ or ‘The Five Children and It’ were cosy favourites. Harry Potter would have been wonderful but wasn’t even a twinkle in his progenitor’s eye.

One move proved to me that the money spent on Playmobile over the years hadn’t been wasted. We had several pieces of flat-packed furniture delivered and after an brief pretence at reading instructions and managing operations I withdrew to read a book whilst they put together a wardrobe, high-rise bed and a desk by themselves. When they had finished all that was left was for me to check the nuts and bolts and graciously congratulate them on their efforts.

Possibly these moves helped to unite and bond us, rather like those corporate team building activity weekends that companies force their personnel to go on.

And maybe that’s what this move is missing. It’s just for me. On the other hand it didn’t feel like that when I came to this place, although none of the children were living at home then either. Somehow I didn’t notice it was just for me. I had the distraction of the recently discovered second-hand book trade and its apputernance, the weird quasi-relationship with the bookman. An interesting interlude that.

I suppose there’s no buzz to this move. Sad to admit, but I still need a buzz - though not one that involves either a man or a pet.

What’s left?

What comes next?

Evidently my psyche is disturbed. Bad dreams are waking me and intruding into my days.

Eldest daughter and her partner came by one weekend to clear out the garden shed. It hasn’t been cleared since I arrived eight years ago when I found I had inherited stuff from the last owner (some of it quite nice actually. An antique cache pot and other pretty flower pots for instance.) I’ve been bunging half-empty paint cans and oddments I can’t quite throw away, on top of her leavings in a deep litter sort of way ever since. The daughter likes a clear palette to work with and had determined to empty the shed out before she owns it so she arrived with sleeves rolled high and directed me to stay indoors whilst they dragged everything out into the light of day. They asked me to check the pile over before it got taken to the recycling yard.

Boxes of fibre glass for repairing surf boards; bamboo shelving; old coat hooks; dozens and dozens of plastic flower pots; bags of material collected for collage-making; a rusty iron barbecue; a trolley used once in the shop until the wheel dropped off; an old table used in the shop until there was no room for it; the bookshop swing sign; stone vinegar bottles bought at the auction rooms in a distracted moment; a couple of oil paintings bought at the same place in the same sort of moment; dozens of jam jars for jam I don’t bother to make any more and I had forgotten about them anyway; a saucepan stand (I saved that for plants); broken tools; pieces of wood that might be useful; boxes that might be useful; a comfy, once pretty chair that unfolds into a bed but the cat sharpened its claws on it till the stuffing started to show and then the rabbit ate bits of it away whilst it was holidaying with me (I can’t bear to see animals caged so I let the rabbit loose in the sun room where it ate through the electric wiring of two lamps, dug into the earth of the plants it could reach and chewed up this chair. I think it enjoyed its holiday.) More wood. A couple of broken shovels, one for snow - should have kept that - garden tools with rotting wooden handles; more boxes; more wood; another barbecue; charcoal; half-empty packets of potting compost; a broken tool box; one of those gizmos for storing lots of different screws and bits in little drawers; a metal filing box, and so on, and so on, ad infinitum.

How had it all fitted into the little shed? I watched it being loaded onto the trailer and driven away and felt - bereft.

That night I dreamt the shed was collapsing because without the contents there was nothing to hold it up. Worse still, I found myself inside the shed trying to convince everyone to get out before it buried us, then, when I looked outside, I saw a concrete yard with a great hole just where I was about to step and the hole went down and down and down ..... I woke sweating.

Like I said, I’m finding this move unexpectedly traumatic.