I am still desperately trying to not count down days, although we’re getting very close to leaving. Packing and preparation is going ok since we stopped work on Friday, and it looks like we are on track to being essentially finished packing at the end of this week, with an avowed intention to do very little in the last week.
Three things which have felt powerfully strange in the past few days, since they are things we don’t normally do.
1. Buying money. It felt quite odd to go to a shopfront and buy money. To swipe our debit cards and tap away an acknowledged amount and in return be given a small handful of what looks vaguely like money, but doesn’t feel like real money. The pounds are sepia toned, faded, ornate. In stark contrast to the brightly coloured plastic monopoly money we’re familiar with. And the mirror-world begins, as we find that it is just slightly the wrong shape to fit comfortably in our wallets.
2. Washing walls. The humidity and constant rain earlier in the year left a bloom of mould across some walls, in no particular pattern. Some walls were fine, some needed a scrub, some needed a quick wipe over. But to be lugging a bucket of water into the house, shoving furniture aside, and scrubbing walls is not an every day occurrence. I just hope the tenants appreciate it.
3. Rising at eight. It’s been so very, very long since we’ve felt able to sleep in that setting the alarm for eight in the morning feels wonderfully sybaritic. And I find that I wake up at half-past-six anyway, and lie there wondering about the day ahead.