I’ve just decamped into our bedroom with a bag of electronics, a few bits of extraneous furniture, cardboard packing cases and bubble wrap hoping to get ahead, or slightly less behind, in the schedule of packing up rooms for the decorators (whilst also still trying to maintain some sensible Covid precautions for us and the decorator whose wife is undergoing treatment).

We’ve been living mostly upstairs for the past 3 days while decorators were working downstairs: so far, so straightforward. Day 4 sees the living room and dining rooms being finished but still out of use and now also two rooms upstairs are having ceilings de-Artexed and plastered (hurrah!), hence the bedroom retreat.

It’s a curious and slightly unnerving foretaste of downsizing, something we need to consider, or of life in one room in a care context – a less happy prospect. Among other lessons learned, juggling tray on lap while sitting in a dining chair is not to be recommended!

It also remains a mystery to me why, after months of decluttering and having worn a track to the tip and charity warehouse, we still have a houseful of ‘stuff’! Well, not exactly a mystery, as we both have wide-ranging interests and a tendency to collect for very differing reasons, but the rate of disposal vs fullness of house & garage does seem to defy the laws of physics.

The logistics are making me grateful for project management skills gained at work. The schedule is akin to one of those sliding puzzles pictures with just one empty slot which keeps moving. At least it’s keeping up the step count.

Apologies for the banality of this, but in an effort to discipline myself to blog more regularly, I have set some reminders and thought I’d better not ignore the first one. So it is I find myself here on the phone, inviting you to share in the domestic disruptions of the disorganized! With carpet fitting to come too, there’s 3 weeks or so of this still to come, so all tips welcome!