Packing is never good. It’s a process that always seems to automatically expand past any limits you set for it- despite how much time you start with. It never seems to matter. If you’ve got a week, it’ll end up taking two. If you’re getting it out of the way in 48 hours, you’ll still be staring slack-jawed at random mounds of cardboard 72 hours later. Now, try to imagine packing when you don’t know exactly when you’ll be seeing your stuff again, or when exactly you’ll be moving out. Welcome to my life.

The last two days have been very, very tiring. The space under our stairs now strongly resembles the Goods In area at George’s workplace, as there’s a massive pile of boxes- and almost all of them seem to contain books. We’re getting on top of it, but tomorrow I’ve got to try and pack up the contents of my desk. I wanted to get all the cleaning done by Friday so we can start showing the place to people- the adverts will be going in tomorrow to appear in Loot later this week, and in Time Out early next week. The big move will be happening on Wednesday- and after that, we’ll be locked into the spartan lifestyle for as long as it takes to get this place filled. I’m halfway between feeling massively confidant that it’ll all be over soon, and terrified that this is going to stretch on for months. Whatever happens, we’ll be primed to go soon. If anyone knows good ways of spreading the word on this, let me know- the more people know about this, the better I’ll feel. Oddly enough, the one thing that really got me tearful and focussed all of my general packing upset was the idea that we would have to pack away the small collection of colourful rubber ducks that live on the windowsil in the bathroom. Silly, but true. After a short request, we’ve worked it so that one will be staying to add a little brightness to a bathroom that’s otherwise going to desperately need it. Getting to the end of this week will at least give me a little recovery time- and once the main clean is done, we should only need to do a small clean once the day of glorious escape arrives…

A side-effect of this is that I’ve ground to a halt on the novel- only temporarily, but it’s still an annoyance. I’m going to try and get little things done, but it’s going to be hard to completely focus and do some of the major structural stuff I need to do to get it right. Every single time I think I’ve got a handle on it, it just gets more complicated. Hey ho…

Watched the season 3 premiere of Battlestar Galactica last night- hugely impressive, brilliantly made stuff, but 90 minutes of brutality, tension, oppression and some serious political issues was possibly a bit much. It’s great, but it also made the Pegasus storyline from last season look like an Oscar Wilde comedy in comparison. There’s a lovely moment between two characters towards the end of the episode that does bring some much needed humour in, and I hope they’re not going to forget that- plus, next episode promises some big-scale action. Should be good…

I’m off to slump in a corner, and not think too much. More packing tomorrow…