Yeah, this was clearly the world’s greatest idea. Why don’t I just keep a cute little diary of my ten day descent into complete carnage and, quite possibly, mental breakdown?! That would be MARVELLOUS.

Yesterday was pure brilliance; I told myself that I had to get out of the house because I couldn’t work without getting led off by packing or cleaning, so I took myself off into London since I had to go to the dentist anyway, and then I was going to sit around and work all day undistracted until dinner. And I totally would have managed it if I hadn’t left every shred of notes that I needed to finish my work on the coffee table. Because I’m a frigging genius.

Dentist? This is also an act of small-time over-enthusiasm with the organisedness on my part: I went to the dentist and said “If you can see a hole, fill it. If there’s anything that you can see the might not be a hole but might become one in a couple of years time, fill it. Whatever you think might need doing, do it”. Of course, the problem of saying this to a private dentist is that the main thing they’re going to see needs doing is them helping you out by relieving you of some more money. So that was great.

I passed some people talking about football on the stairs as I went into the office. I felt a bit sad because the echoey stairs were so horribly mid-60s British office-building, and the men were so earnest and footballish and THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is how organised I am: I’m even scheduling in time to get homesick in advance.

Today I saw my accountant - the best moment of that by far being the one where I had to say “I hope you don’t mind but I’ve brought my boyfriend because if I’m here alone I won’t understand a word you’re saying” and get looked at like the financial idiot I really am.

It’s true, though. I’ve tried to have several conversations with accountants and each time I sit there nodding enthusiastically because I want them to like me, and looking like I’m following what they’re saying, but actually thinking about bunnies and rainbows and what to make for dinner.

The irony in this situation was that what was said in the meeting even I should have been able to understand. I didn’t, of course.

“In terms of jubilatant and exorcismic profile hat-law of 1988, I cannot reasonably imagine how the bunny can make any flipjoy” said the accountant.
“He says it’s going to be all the same” translated My Beloved.
“But whu-wha-hm? Why? And the thing?” I enquired.
“She wants to know when to file her tax return” My Beloved helped.
A feedback noise came from the other side of the room.
“He says October with your next VAT thing” My beloved explained.

So I stumbled through the half hour, and everything seemed pretty sensible and actually straight-forward, and I was proud of myself and I didn’t even cry once, which is usually my response to people trying to talk to me about money, shortly before screaming “Oh GOD just take it! Take it ALL just don’t TALK anymore! I don’t UNDERSTAND! Just bloody TAKE IT!” and running off to hide under a duvet, penniless but calmer.

Then of course the accountant rang a few hours later and, with only me on the other end of the phone, said something about how it wasn’t all simple after all but very complicated instead and especially this one bit that was so complex he’d had to ring the helpline himself and then read a whole book about it all. And now all I had to do was decide whether I thought I’d be better off paying tax in the UK or the US so what did I think?

I remember remarking that that was what i had hoped my accountant might tell me, but then it gets all a bit fuzzy and the next thing I remember I was under the duvet, hiding from the world.

Packing continues apace, apart from the fact I’ve pretty much run out of things to pack.
We’re becoming convinced, however, that if we just shed a little more stuff, all our belongings will fit in half the space, and therefore only need one storage container and thus be ‘full of win’ as I believe the kids say nowadays. It would be cheaper by half, basically.

Tomorrow leaving drinks for some work friends and some friend-friends. Which will be nice. Although I also have to do all that work I was supposed to finish yesterday but couldn’t because I am a dizzy fool with a head full of fluff and wind and weevils right now.

Five days though. Four and a half, really.

Seven days.

Seven days until I won’t live in Brighton anymore. I won’t even live in Britain anymore.

I love Brighton. We’ve only been down here three years but I’ve felt more at home, more settled, than I have before for a long long time. There are many many ugly things about the city - I’m not denying it (what would be the point?) - but there are many lovely things about it too. But that’s for another day.

Anyway. Seven days. Seven days and I won’t live in Britain anymore.

I folded and piled the clothes we have left that weren’t in the wash on the end of the bed.
With only one suitcase left to fill to bring with us next week, I was suddenly struck by both the realisation that I may have thrown away too much and the feeling that I wanted to get rid of everything - everything - and just go.

I thought through the things that have gone off in lots and lots of bags and wondered whether it would be alright to go up to this nice little lady in the charity hut and say “You know that nice little blue number I brought in yesterday? Can I have it back?” before deciding it wouldn’t and getting the hoover out instead.

I’m going to go into the office tomorrow; force myself to sit at a desk staring at a computer where there’s nothing to do but work; no packing, no sorting, and No Cleaning.

Because if in doubt, I clean things. Carpets, walls, cupboard doors, floor tiles, showers and everything in them. Throw things away, sort things out into neat little piles and stack them neatly, but most of all: clean.
If in doubt: clean.

There’s something wrong with me.

No one says that and enjoys it.
(Well, unless they’re trying not to think about lots of more scary things, of course…)

(And posted one day late)

Monday was mainly taken up by a family visit. Descending first thing in the morning, and staying for a lovely day of games and food and blustery walks on the beach. It was lovely.

I missed most of the walky bits and the food bits, however, as I holed myself up and tried to finish some work. I’ve not organised this too well, as (doing the freelance thing it’s REALLY hard to say no, because it’s scary not to accept work when offered, I think) I decided to scale back during the move but not take a break completely, so I’ve still had a bunch of deadlines to work to.

Which is fine and good and groovy and all - just means I have to stop being useful every now and again and lock myself in a room which is already finished (so I can’t get distracted sorted something out) and do something completely useless (like silly writing things).

There being a three-year-old in the house - an incredibly cute one, but one who liked chasing the kittings around shouting ‘SQUIDGET! SQUIDGET!’ and swinging a toy mouse on a stick around his head - Squirrel and Widget spent almost the whole day hiding in the bed. Not behind the bed, not under the bed but buried deep under the duvet, looking out whenever someone checked on them there with big, round eyes.

I’m worried about them the most. Which is silly, in a lot of ways, because there are a lot of things to worry about, but having decided to take them with us, I’m kind of obsessing about the fact that I want them to get there in one shape and not completely traumatised by the episode.

They’ll be picked up on Monday, a few hours before all our belongings (well, books, mainly but some important furniture) gets picked up and put into a storage container, and a few more before we leave the house and drag ourselves and our worldly stuff to the airport.

On Monday and Tuesday nights, they’ll stay in a cattery near Heathrow where they’ll get looked over by the house vet and given their final clearance (they’ve already had all the immunisations required for California, and rabies vaccinations for when they come back - and no, no quarantine either way) and on Wednesday they’ll fly out, and arrive 11 hours later, hopefully, then be delivered in one piece - or two pieces, more accurately, as there are two of them - to our new flat.

Hopefully we’ll have furniture by then, but we’ll certainly have cat things ready and waiting.
Litter and food and the basic stuff is already waiting in the storage unit out there: familiar blankets and treats we’ll have taken with us.

And yes, I know it sounds like they’re precious and they’re spoiled. But I am obsessing about one certain thing. Because there’s a lot of things involved here, a lot of complicated decisions and new situations and unknown quantities. And the more I obsess with one little bit of it, the calmer I am about the rest.

I know, I know. It’s silly. But if it wasn’t the cats it would be something else.
At least I can tell and keep it in perspective.
Or sort of.
Anyway.
I have work to do.
And cats to fuss.

Ahem. Well, um, today I spent mainly alternating sleeping with lying around groaning and being hungover.

And then after ineffectually putting some small things in a box I sat down heavily on the stairs and had a big cry wailing “I don’t want to go, this is where I live, I live here, it’s all too big, it’s all too much, I can’t do it” before going and hiding under a duvet and refusing to come out until it all went away for a bit.

Well, we can’t all be perfect and organised all the time, right?

I did, however, then get started on some previews and some other stuff that needs to be filed tomorrow, and booked an airport hotel for the night before the flight (because I refuse to let ‘getting to the flight’ be one more thing for me to be anxious about)(and also we won’t have a bed that last night, so, y’know). But still. I did fuck-all useful in terms of moving house, country, continent today. Whoopses.

You’ll have to excuse me for being quite plain and informative. I’m just trying to keep a record - both to remind me of this time and because my therapist once said that it was important for me to keep lists of things I’d achieved in a day as well as things to do for the next day or the next week: something to do with realising I achieved things as well as always feeling like I was running behind. I don’t know. He put it in more fancy therapist-speak than that obviously. Anyway. This is where we are at ten days before we fly.

There are boxes everywhere. Mainly in the living room, where an area the size of our storage unit has been carefully measure out in the floor - if we can’t fit everything in there, it’s just not going to be stored.

Upstairs are four large suitcases and two small ones. The large ones will come with us on the flight and have to contain all the clothes and books and pictures and knick-knacks we can’t do without for the next wee while - the two smaller will come out with family members in a few months time. That’s all we’re moving with. Oh, and a poster tube. I hope they’ll take it as hand luggage. Things are stupid-expensive to post.

Yesterday I packed two of the suitcases. Allowed 23k per case, they currently weigh in at 22.9, which I think might be chancing it a little, but at least that’s two done. One has a DVD case, an enormous one, containing pocket after pocket of TV box set discs. The ones that wouldn’t fit in are in envelopes at the bottom of another, with a stack of books packed in tightly beside them. The similarly-sized film -filled case went over with My Beloved when he went to find a flat. I’m worried everything left won’t fit in the remaining cases, but there’s time to repack, if not. I think. I hope.

Back to today. We ordered all our furniture from the US online site of those crazy Swedes with their crazy names in bed this morning and ordered it to hopefully arrive at the flat the day after we do. This was a triumph of global consumerism: we’d gone and sat on sofas and bounced on mattresses and picked out what we wanted at their Bristol branch a few weeks ago, down in Somerset for a wedding and driven there by a lovely local blogger after a hungover breakfast in Bath.

I vacuumed upstairs and stared dolefully at suitcases while My Beloved went to buy the ingredients for tonight’s ultra-British dinner of sausage and mash and gravy, then packed up the last of the things for the clothes recycling thing while he made a bread and butter pudding with marmalade I made last week at my little mother’s house.

Then, when a lovely Brightonian friend with a little car arrived, the two of them took seven ginormous bags of clothes and a big sack of barely-worn shoes to the charity recycling place, and I started throwing out things in the bathroom.

The rest of the day: we cleared out the garden, Miss Tickle and I - she having some mysterious affinity for plants, and I having none at all. How small is my plantaffinity? After more than a year of being here and discovering that the planters we’d so hopefully planted all the lovely things in had no drainage at all, followed by a rainy rainy summer and an even rainier winter, I have busily been growing mainly buckets of mud with a small dead stick sticking out of the top. Trying to work out both what she could salvage and how the hell you could get rid of 8 buckets of mud in a town centre patio garden took up most of the afternoon. Buckets of mud that really smell, may I add. Another thousand years and they might have been peat, or mud, or coal. But I think you might have to sit on them first.

The cats did sit on them, of course. They have been helping. Widget, mainly. She’s sitting in every suitcase you want to pack, every box you want to fill, and in every bucket of mud you otherwise have no idea what to do with. She is helping. Squirrel has been jumping to the top of any stack of boxes we make, and watching carefully and suspiciously as her house gets deconstructed around her.

I cleaned the bathroom, scrubbing all the grouting and the tiles on the floors and the space behind the toilet seat. It’s the thing about leaving a rented house; you have to leave it perfect, and the earlier it’s done, the less chaotic I feel, and then I just have to wipe over it next week and it’s done.

In the bathroom, lotions and potions are lined up to be used, years of random Christmas presents and impulse-buys - we may both smell like a cross between a fruit-market and a whorehouse from up close this week if you come near us, but we’ll be cleaner than possibly ever before.

That will be the theme of meals for the rest of the week, eating all the things in the cupboard in increasingly random concoctions before whatever’s left over becomes a grab bag for any lovely person in Brighton that wants it.

Friends will arrive in a minute for their Very-English dinner. I’m even going to make them play board games after it, though they don’t know it yet.

In the meantime we’re sitting in the emptier garden, drinking a bottle of champagne to celebrate the fact that there happened to be a bottle of champagne in the fridge.

Everything’s going ok, I think. Though there’s a very low-level anxiety still present that just comes from being me. But everything seems to be ok. Sorry for a boring post.

I promise you, something calamitous *will* happen to spice things up over the next ten days.

… ‘place’ mainly turning out to be the bin, as it happens.

Well, not the bin. One of the modern wooly liberal variants on the bin. The airing cupboard is literally full of clothes to take to the clothes recycling place (two of those outsized ikea sacks and five large carrier bags stuffed full of clothes, to date)

We now have enough clothes between us to fill a chest of drawers - and, we’re hoping, two suitcases each with some room left over for important house things and books that we can’t possibly be without until they follow us over in a couple of small parcels a few weeks later.

Everything else is being piled up in the section of the living room that has been marked out to represent the storage unit we’ll be renting, apart from the furniture that we can loan or give out to friends. And the electronics that, similarly, will most likely be near-obsolete when we get back, so I’d rather they would be used than in a box are starting to pile up, waiting to go to their new homes. Apart from the ones we need for work until we leave, obviously.

And there are a couple of boxes full of random wonderfulness that will find their way to a charity shop as soon as someone can be arsed.

I even cleared up every small jar of coppers and mug of change from around the house and bagged them up to go to the bank, the other day - have I told you about My Beloved’s Bizarre and Maddening Problem with small-denomination coins? I will, one day… - and there was £54. In 1, 2 and 5 pences, yes. So that puts a (tiny) dent in the pet travel agent fund.

But, I realised, I’m being very organised about things that I already HAVE. But what about things I will miss?

It was so many people mentioning tea in your lovely comments on the last post that made me think of it. I mean, I don’t drink tea*, so that’s ok, but otherwise…

I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas of things I should definitely remember to take with me. If you are abroad, and British, what do you want, I mean? And if you aren’t (but are still one of us) what would you miss?

And yes - I’ve already checked that we can get marmite (and vegemite) there.
Scami Fries though?
No, not a one.
My favourite Peri Peri sauce?
None of it! WAH!

So just so as I don’t start using this as a brand new thing to panic about - what might I miss, do you think? What would you?

(more…)

But since it wasn’t my news but news concerning My Beloved (writing about it here), and I’m just tagging along (well, kinda), and now the announcement has officially been made …

In two weeks time we’re moving to San Francisco. Yes, me too. All of us.
Exactly two weeks. In two weeks time I will be on a plane to my new flat, which is in San Francsico.
For how long? I don’t know. A few years. Long enough to take the cats.

There is my news.

If there’s any questions, be sure to ask them, I’ll probably be blogging a lot more often from now on, as a person in a new country (and a person in a new country with no friends, more importantly) though for the next few weeks I might be, if not quieter, certainly more fraught (now I can finally talk about it). I was rather superstitious about not wanting to pack too much until it was officially announced.

So I’ve got two weeks to pile my house into ’storage’ ‘recycle’ ‘post’ and ‘chuck’ piles and make sure all the piles go into the right boxes. I’ve also got dentists appointments, doctor’s appointments, accountants to see, meetings to have and cats to worry about. I’m flipping out, basically.

But in a really really excited way.

I’m still not allowed to officially announce the secret that I hinted at a few weeks ago - but it’s because of that that I’m being quiet - partly because everything to do with it is occupying my whole time and brain in the real world, and partly because I’m really bad at secrets and I hate not telling you (believe me, I’ve been pushing to be allowed to mention it, but it’s entirely outside my control).
ARG.

Which is unusual enough, for me.

I’m on my way to the islands to see my little mother for a few days, but here is a meeeeeem thing that I was going to do when I saw it on lovely Cliff’s site, but then Miss Tickle told me I had to do it, so I did.

The Finishey-Sentencey Meeeeeem

1. My uncle once: hid under a little wooden bridge in Port Erin and pretended to be a troll while his nieces and nephews pretended to be billy goats gruff trip-trapping over the brdge. He did this more than once, in fact. In fact, I remember him doing it quite a lot of the time. Perhaps it was his job.

2. Never in my life: have I flown a passenger jet, because no one’s ever let me. EVER. Fuckwads.

3. When I was five: I was terribly short. Comparatively. I can’t remember much else. Or, in fact, remember that, really. It’s more guesswork, really. I guess I was quite short, as no one’s ever mentioned anything to the contrary, not even in hushed tones. I was also still very blonde, the only one in my family. I still think I’m blonde. I fill it in on forms. I’m not, apparently.

4. High school was: something on the television. Degrassi Junior High, etc. I went to Secondary school. It wasn’t great. It was a failing school then (I think it’s actually failed by now) and I was quite bullied at it. Still. It all went toward making me who I am today, and for that I should be grateful.

5. I will never forget: how to spell my name. I hope. I will also never forget the sight of my beloved walking up the road toward me the first time we met for lunch. I thought I was going to be sick.
(In a good way)

6. Once I met: Eddie Izzard after a gig of his in 1993. It was the fifth time I’d seen him perform, and the boy I was there with wanted to wait at the stage door. I really didn’t want to. I was too big a fan at the time. I hate meeting people I admire. It spoils it. Never meet your heroes, etc. I stopped liking him so much after that. Both the boy I was dating (turned out to be gay anyway, the second in a series of such) and Eddie.

7. There’s this girl I know: swears she Elvis. But she’s a bit mad, so we don’t talk to her anymore.

8. Once, at a bar: - an Irish theme pub I worked in for a couple of years in South Manchester - we had a craicometer behind the bar to measure how much fun everyone was having. I had to stand on the bar shouting to get everyone to leave; THAT’S how full of the craic we were. We discovered that if you stood up there and shouted ‘Telly Tubbies go bye bye!!!’ all the students in the place would stand up immediately and file out the door, waving. Which was useful, if slightly a sad indictment of my generation.

9. By noon, I’m usually: about 2,000 words through my day. With any luck. I’m certainly about 3 cups of coffee down. And one episode of The Gilmore Girls. And I’m bored. I have a VERY short attention span.

10. Last night: I stayed in a hotel I was anonymously reviewing, which was a lark.

11. If only I had: a thicker skin. Or enough confidence to bounce back with the thin one I do have. Or a fuzzy yellow and black skin. And wings. That would also be amazing. Also if I had an army of polar bears.

12. Next time I go to church: will be for someone’s wedding, I should think.
Not mine, no.

13. What worries me most: HA! Sorry. Um. Everything? Probably the idea that one of the people I love will suddenly die before I next see them. That’s a pretty normal one, isn’t it? People not liking me is the most constant, though.

14. When I turn my head left I see: The scenery of North-East England rushing past the window. I’m on a train heading north from Yorkshire on my way to see my little mother. There are some baby cows right now, and there was a obscenely large cathedral a minute ago.

15. When I turn my head right I see: An annoying man who’s trying to talk to me about people stealing copper wire due to the recession. I suppose I should listen to him, since I apparently stole his seat, but there weren’t any reservation tickets anywhere when I got on, so he can shove it up his arse. Oh brilliant, now he’s telling me all about his divorce and how he suspects his wife’s trying to screw him out of more money in the financial settlement than she should. Seriously: he got on the train less the six minutes ago, I’m sitting here typing furiously - while he talks, no less - I’ve got one earbud in and I’m offering nothing but monosyllabic responses. What about that says ‘Yes, I’m well up for a conversation about your divorce, talk away!’, please?

16. You know I’m lying when: I start laughing halfway through whatever I‘m saying if I catch your eye by mistake. I’m terrible at lying. Terrible.

17. What I miss most about the Eighties is: batwing jumpers.

18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: The Shrew. Pre-taming. And without any taming likely. Or Beatice. Or the bear. I like bears.

19. By this time next year: I’ll be far, far away. By this time next month, in fact. No, I still can’t tell you. Yes, it IS driving me mad.

20. A better name for me would be: Zuzu. I don’t know. I don’t think I’m the right person to choose my own name. You can choose it. What would a better name for me be, please?

21. I have a hard time understanding: numbers. They make me cry. I’d blame my appalling education but my brother had the same and is a mathematical genius. Whereas I look at them and my brain fills up with colours and sounds and I can’t see them anymore.

22. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: be even worse at speaking only when spoken to than I was the first time around. Why would I go back to school? Oh, like for another qualification? The next thing for me would be a PHD, which is pretty ridiculous. The only thing I would possibly be interested in doing would be a thesis on comedy/sitcom scripts and funny women therein. I can’t imagine there’d be much opportunity for that, though. Imagine, though; I’d end up being Dr Anna.
“Quick! Is there a doctor on the plane!?”
“Yes, but my specialist doctor-area is Friends, is that ok?”

23. You know I like you if: I tell you I like you.
In fact, I probably like you anyway. I like most people, unless they’re anonymous and cunty.

24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: the people who gave me the award, probably. I think that would be polite. Then some other people, depending on what it was for.

25. Take my advice, never: think you’ll do this meme ‘because it’ll only take you five minutes’, because it bloody won’t.

26. My ideal breakfast is: Eggs Benedict (as it’s usually and most advisedly served in this country, with smoked salmon. Other people would call this Eggs Royale, I believe)

27. A song I love but do not have is: I don’t seem to have the Beatles version of Here, There and Everywhere on my computer, though I’m sure I have it on CD. I do, however, seem to have the Perry Como version. I can’t think of something I love but don’t own, though. I’m a bit spoilt like that. And that is what iTunes is for, no?

28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: tell me where it is. I don’t really have a hometown, I don’t think. Variously, depending on how you define hometown, I would suggest you: a) get an oyster card because they’re better value; b) do the Torr millenium cliff walk; c) See something at the Royal Exchange d) Go for a paddle or e) avoid West Street on a Saturday night.

29. Why won’t people: Eat with their mouth shut? Sorry, that’s shallow. ‘Just get along?’ is that better?

30. If you spend a night at my house: I’ll be quite confused and upset about it unless we’ve at least been introduced first.

31. I’d stop my wedding for: A fire? I would stop it for a fire. I wouldn’t want everyone to die in a fire just because I was getting married, that would be dreadful. Oh, is this meant to be a person? Then no one. Well, no, I’d stop it for my beloved if if my beloved wanted to fart because I think it would be better if he went into the hallway and did it and then came back because otherwise it might ruin the moment.

32. The world could do without: me. I’m not being stupid or suicidal, I’m just not very important, in the scheme of things.

33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: it’s penis.

34. My favourite blonde(s) is/are: My friend Hildegunn. But not because she’s blonde. How shallow would that be? And me, obv.

35. Paper clips are more useful than: hairdryers. I fecking hate hairdryers.

36. If I do anything well it’s: procrastinate. And worry. I really do lead the field in worrying.

37. I can’t help but: Worry. And write.

38. I usually cry: Yes. I usually cry at television programmes constructed entirely with the intention of making women cry. Grey’ Anatomy, for example. I’ll sit there talking about how much I despise it all for the first 41 minutes, then burst into tears by the credits for no reason I can put my finger on.

39. My advice to my child/nephew/niece: Being sensible is overrated.

40. And by the way: You’re lovely.

I don’t like tagging people. And I don’t know who has and hasn’t done it yet.
So you, yes YOU. You should do it.

But when I posted those things last week about my wine trip thing, it was exactly seven years to the day since I started this blog.

Crikey, etc.