Well, I have moved out of my Bath flat, second home for two long, interesting and exciting years. I did it last weekend, that's Saturday the 24th, and I needed a van to get all the stuff home. - mostly because I had a tumble dryer which my flatmates decided at the last minute that they didn't want, giving me no time to sell it. Still, now I have a newish tumble dryer here, which will be good for replacing the ~25 year old one we have in the kitchen, which squeaks like a pregnant mouse spinning at 50 RPM, while getting blasted with hot air.

Up until Saturday, I was of the opinion that if a burglar can empty an entire house of all valuables in under 4 minutes, I should be able to empty two rooms of all my possessions in under 4 hours. Since my dad was arriving at 5pm, starting the process at 10am should therefore be perfectly adequate and leave me a few hours to relax, go to the co-op, watch some television etc.

Unfortunately, what I failed to take into consideration was that when faced with (for example) 100 metres of CAT 5 cable, split up and trailing around the house, your average thief would just skip it and go for the VCR next to it. And even if he did decide to take it, then he usually wouldn't spend time rolling it neatly and tucking in the end before putting it in a box, and he certainly wouldn't pause to take off the 4 or 5 bits of duct tape per metre.

By the time my dad arrived with his van at about 6pm, I had most things packed. I say most things; well, there were still a lot of things in the kitchen, like toasters and kettles and microwaves. But, we had loaded up the van by about 7; Tristan stayed around to help, which made things a lot easier, and after a final trip to the co-op with the usual mini cheddars and special-occasion orangina on the way back, we said goodbye and I was ready to depart.

The journey home was pretty uneventful, apart from getting re-routed off the M4 and into a T-junction on a busy road for no apparentl reason other than to delay our journey by about half an hour. Eventually we arrived home at 11pm, and unloaded the van by midnight.

Today is Tuesday, and I'm still unpacking. I'm only three boxes in...

I will finish with a short poem; Ode to a Bathroom Mat:

Oh, trusty bathroom mat,
you have served us well.
I hope the you are currently
enjoying the bathroom floor.
But hey, I got all my DVDs, what do I care.

I think I've missed my true calling.