Pack up your troubles

Those of you who are in the know (i.e. follow my Project365 photos on Flickr or are friends with me on Facebook) will know that I am going to be moving at the end of the month.

For those of you not in the know?

I’m moving at the end of the month.

I’m not going far, this is not some grand relocation, I am in fact moving approximately 0.5 miles away from where I currently live, so less than a 10 minute walk.

If I could afford it I’d be living on my own, but until my debts are paid off (which if they were would give me an extra £350 a month. I know. Ouchies.) I’m going to have to content myself with continuing to share a house.

I played it cool when I saw the room, I didn’t want to give away too much but my insides were doing backflips. “Hello massive room!” my insides were saying. “Hello awesome wooden floor. Hello cute little fireplace. Hello SPACE.” The space bit was very exciting for me. At the moment, unless I hang up my clothes as soon as I take them off, it’ll only take 2 days before I have no floor space left. If The Person comes to stay there has to be system in place for getting changed in the morning because there’s definitely not enough room for two people in there.

So it’s very exciting. I don’t know who the people are that I’m sharing with. Some might say that’s a gamble, but given that the landlady only takes on professionals and comes and checks the house once a month, I’m feeling pretty confident. And if not, hey it'll give me some fodder for the blog!

The grand move in date is 1st October which isn’t that close but appeared much closer when I realised that I don’t actually have any free weekends up until the day that I move. That’s not good. I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve got a ton of boxes to hand, thanks to the fact that there’s a community cafe at my work, so my belongings are currently being packed into boxes formerly containing bags of chips and cans of tuna.

My approach is simple. As soon as I come in from work I make a start and keep going until I get bored. This approach has actually meant that I’ve pretty much packed as much as I can already. It’s not too hard really, my main baggage consists of books and dvds. I’m going to have to spend quite a bit of money when I get to the new place accumulating stuff because when I moved out of the flat I shared with the Ex, I let him take pretty much everything, so I don’t own basic things like, you know, plates or cutlery.

But I have taken the packing as an opportunity to get rid of stuff. Add in the fact that Dorothy is also having a clear out of gargantuan proportions and the result is that the downstairs has enough stock in it to keep various charity shops in business for the next year or so.

I would love to make some money out of it all, Dorothy has plans for a car boot, but I just don’t have time to be faffing with it, literally don’t have the time given that my weekends are blocked up. Where I can I’ve tried to make a bit of money though. A loads of dvds that were destined for charity have been packed up and sent to Music Magpie – you don’t get much for a dvd, probably around 30p, bit more for box sets, but I’ve managed to make £22 out of 27 dvds that I would have given away for free so it’s better than a kick in the teeth. An old mobile is going to Envirofone for £14 (check Mazuma and Envirofone before you sell, Mazuma were only offering me £12 for my old phone). So that’s £36 in the plates and cutlery fund already!

I’ve also been brutal with my books. I’m pretty brutal anyway, I read them and get rid. There are very very few that make it to the permanent shelf. And if you saw how many books are on the “to read” bookcase you’d realise that I really don’t need to keep the books I’ve already read. What are the chances of me reading them again? Slim to none. Out they go!

But then I thought maybe some of you guys would like them?

So here’s a select pile for you to have a look at

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruis Zafon /
Wedlock. How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match – Wendy Moore
The Sea – John Banville
People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks
The 19th Wife – David Ebershoff
Firmin – Sam Savage
The One From the Other – Philip Kerr
Fragrant Harbour – John Lanchester
(I have linked to each title so you can have a read of the synopsis and see if you fancy them.)

It’s simple. All you need to do is
- leave a comment,
- tell me which book you would like, and
- tell me anything hilarious that’s happened to you when you’ve moved/packed up to move

I’ll pick out THREE winners, let you know if you've been successful and send your books on out to you in the post. (I was going to give them all away, and then I realised that that would be my £36 that I’ve already made out the window and I’d be eating out of a shoe. You wouldn’t want that would you?)

You have until Friday 16th September to enter, whereupon I will close the contest, and pick winners out of the approximately 5 people who will enter.

GO GO GO!

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Apologies for the crap blogging lately. Funnily enough I have freaking loads to tell you but have found myself a) without time and b) without decent internet access to upload photos and we all now that we like a good photo filled post.