New Home, New Start...

Thought I'd make another attempt at blogging. Since I'm so far away from home, again, and this time maybe permanently....

Don't think there's any need to go into details past here, although here's the story.

Today I feel sick again! Joy. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's due to the stress of moving. I didn't actually believe the stories about moving house being one of the 3 most stressful things you can do, along with having a baby and something else which I can't remember. But, I thought the stress was due to moving away from friends and family, being alone, having to carve out a new life. Doesn't worry me much. Apart from the internet bringing family and friends closer, I've never been one to worry much about a new start. The thing that's got me is all the stuff that Steve and I have managed to accumulate over the past 8 years - that's including the time before we got married, when the traditional "bottom drawer" grew into most of my parents' front room.

We've had incidents in the past when some attempt at sorting out all the junk has been necessary, most notably when we had an arson attack on the house in 2003. Problem is, when that happened all that ensued was everything (everything) got put into boxes and taken away to be cleaned (although now that we're going through everything again, we're constantly having to wash soot off our hands from the supposedly cleaned stuff) and then we never got around to getting it out of the boxes. 4 years ago! Two years ago, when we moved to Finland for a year, we didn't actually sell our house so basically everything that we didn't need or want to take with us, we just dumped in the attic. Bad move... Necessary, but still a pretty bad move.

So over the past year we've been up there on occasion and taken things out of boxes and found things that we'd not seen for 4 years and thought we'd lost, and found so many memories. One was a little porcelain owl that mum says I got when I left primary school - a "wise owl" and a mini dictionary was given to every child. The fact that so much of the stuff in the attic has a story attached would be great if I could remember any of the stories. I've got a feeling I'm going to be pretty useless when my great grandkids ask me to tell them stories of my childhood!

But because we have been up in the attic on occasion, and taken things out of boxes but not done anything with them, it means that we have an attic floor strewn with odd bits and pieces, not in any particular order, not in boxes. And so, very difficult to just pack up and move. And every time we visit Manchester now, it gets harder and harder because it's not a visit home, it's a visit to dredge up more old memories, and usually the ones that do come back to me are the ones I'd prefer to forget.

On a happier note though, I'm so relieved that when we go back we don't have to sleep in the house!! There's no furniture and no kettle and no pans and no microwave so no way of making a cup of tea in the morning, and sleeping on an airbed just manages to kill any hopes of my right arm being of any use at all the following day. Two couples from church have opened their spare bedrooms to us when we go back for sorting weekends, and rather than sorting and taking junk back to Steyning we can sort and take junk back for further sorting to my parents' house which is 15 minutes away rather than 4 and a half hours away.

But still, mum's worried about me because I'm feeling sick so often, and I'm fed up because I've lost weight again (I have a target weight which is half a stone away (heavier, not lighter), and I just can't get there, no matter how much I try) because I'm not eating my usual amount of food because I feel sick so often, and I'm soooooo tired. I'm looking forward to the week after next. We might actually manage a full fortnight in Steyning.