Moving checklists

With only four weeks till the moving van arrives, my mental checklist is becoming increasingly specific. Gustav catches me staring off into the middle distance, which is common enough with me, but now I have to explain that I’m mentally packing the items on the shelf over his left shoulder. The rooms full of books have been turned into rooms with some cardboard replicas of the basalt columns from the Giant’s Causeway. Bookcases have returned to their flatpack embryonic forms, and several cupboards of overflowing wires, widgets and paperwork have submitted to being distilled to a few crates of essentials. We have one last guest arriving in mid-February, so I’m leaving everything else in place till he goes, otherwise the house will be left with all the ambience of an empty transport container. The really big stake-in-the-ground milestone was booking our plane tickets while they were both available and affordable. That’s all done except for the short leg I’ll have to do from London to Copenhagen to meet up with Gustav after Munson’s been handed over to the pet transporters. The remaining time has three stages for me: packing, Paris and “parading around Britain”. I got the Paris stretch mostly sorted today with a hotel booking, Gustav’s onward flight, and my ferry booking from Calais to Dover. So I arrive in London on Sunday March 3, and take Munson in to Heathrow for blood tests the following morning, and with any luck on to Munson’s Coffee for lunch immediately after that. That gives us twenty days to catch up with all and sundry around the UK. So far I’ve pencilled in visits to Cornwall, the Isle of Wight, Wigan, Norfolk and Cambridge. I’ve half a mind to do another week long walk with Munson somewhere. If you have any suggestions or offers of a sofa for a night or two, please yell!