After twelve years we are moving home. A new chapter approaches and I can’t wait to start living in the new house which has a lovely big garden and is miles away from everywhere. The trouble there is the slight problem of moving twelve years’ worth of stuff from one place to the other.

We started with the quotes. ‘Let’s be sensible!’ we agreed. ‘We’ll get three quotes from three reputable removal companies and go for the cheapest. Let’s get them to do all the packing for us so we can sit back and relax while they do the work for us.’

An insight into how much money this move cost

The first quote was so enormous I almost lost the ability to speak when company number one called. Moving had clearly become considerably more expensive than when we last moved over a decade ago. ‘Can I get back to you?’ I eventually said, ‘I was hoping for a lower price than that.’

‘You won’t find one,’ removal company man said tersely as he rang off.

‘Never mind,’ husband said. ‘That’s why we got in three companies to give us quotes – let’s wait for the next one.’

The second company was a THOUSAND pounds more and the third £500 on top of that. I couldn’t believe it. The idea that we would pay for them to do the packing for us (at an extra cost of £900 PLUS VAT) very quickly went out of the window.

‘We’ll pack ourselves,’ I said airily to husband as I called the first company back. ‘It’ll be fine – I’m on holiday and we haven’t got that much – we’ll probably throw most of it away.’

 Removal company man didn’t actually say ‘oh, you’ve come crawling back to us, have you?’ but I could hear it in the tone of his voice. We booked him for the end of the month and handed over an eye-watering amount of cash.

Dog wishing the packing was all over so she could go outside and talk to some other dogs

It was then I discovered the packing boxes, wrapping paper, and parcel tape weren’t included. So I paid over more cash to receive 95 boxes of varying sizes. When we started to put them together we discovered the parcel tape had strange powers. It was so strong you could only cut it with the very sharpest of scissors (that disappeared completely whenever I put them down) and yet was so weak that it promptly peeled itself off when you tried to affix it to the packing box. Not fit for purpose. No point in having the strongest tape in the world if the glue is so weak a post it note would have stuck better. It reminded me of that urban myth about a spider that has the strongest venom in the world but fangs to weak to actually bite anyone.

Boxes, boxes and more boxes. Wrapped with lots of poor quality parcel tape

In the end the only way you could seal the boxes was by wrapping the parcel tape round and round and round the boxes until they resembled the cellophane-wrapped Lucozade bottles of the 70s. We have already got through ten rolls of the stuff. There’s no way I’m getting any more from the company so a trip to WH Smith was in order to pay out even more for parcel tape that actually stuck onto the box and held it shut with only one strip.

Once the boxes were put together and ready to be filled, I sat back and surveyed the flat. Over twelve years of living in a flat – two adults working full time, two children growing from five and three to seventeen and fifteen – and a spoiled dog – had led to the place being filled with all sorts of junk. In fact, I had vastly underestimated the amount of stuff we had accumulated over that time.

Why did I still have booster seats for children who are taller than I am? Why did I think I still needed the baby bjorn baby sling? Why am I physically incapable of throwing away any mothers’ day card, badly drawn sketches of Sponge Bob square pants and Disney princesses,, any reports, any exercise book, any handmade Christmas decoration and tangled bits of wool my children have made over the years?

My teenagers show no such sentimentality. Without a care in the world they have been ejecting great bin bags full of precious childhood toys, expensive clothes, lovingly bought children books that we used to read to them every evening, into the corridor outside their rooms.

‘You should keep these for your children!’ I say, holding up ‘Ballet Shoes’, ‘Harry Potter’ and – what used to be a huge favourite – the ‘How to Train your Dragon’ series.

They just shrug. ‘Philistines!’ I mutter and squirrel away everything I think they will regret discarding and add it to the huge pile of drawings and homemade pom poms that I’m collecting. I have no idea what to do with it.

Husband is keen to streamline our possessions down to the bone. Ruthlessly his wedding suit, a stereo, tons of books, vinyl and cds are added to the charity shop pile. For the millionth time I have to endure the ‘I’ve now got this album on record, cassette, minidisc and CD!’ rant that always happens when he looks at his record collection.

I, on the other hand, want to keep everything. I’ve managed to part with some books for the charity shop, but my grandmother’s sewing basket and singer sewing machine aren’t going anywhere. I’m planning on installing a Shepherd’s hut in the garden at the new house (when I have the money) to use as an office. Whenever husband asks me if he can throw something of mine away I reply, ‘no! it’s going in my shepherd’s hut.’

‘You won’t be able to get into your shepherd’s hut at this rate,’ he mutters.

He’s probably right, but some things I just can’t bring myself to throw away. I know there will be boxes of stuff that I won’t open for ten years because as we prepare to move I have found boxes of stuff that I hadn’t opened from 12 years ago. Did I think – oh, I obviously haven’t needed this stuff for 12 years as I didn’t even miss it –  I’ll just chuck all of it.

No. I didn’t. Who knows? One day I may need that sausage mincer from the 1950s, or find the charging cable for that Sony Walkman.

The suitcase of letters between my grandma and her future husband written in the 1930’s – not something I will ever throw away!

I’m now at that horrible halfway stage where all the cupboards, drawers, sideboards and shelves have been emptied but not all of the boxes have been filled. I have sixteen monstrously swollen bin bags on the landing waiting to be taken to the dump as well as three bedside cabinets and a broken sofa.

I was quite pleased when I packed all the bedding and towels before realising we still have another week and will actually need bedding and towels.

The flat is stuffed to the gunnels with boxes that have been shoved up against the walls. Because every single sharpie pen we possess is on its last legs the instructions written on the boxes are mostly illegible. In fact, because they are second-hand boxes, the previous owners – who obviously had a much better set of pens than we do – have left very clear instructions that are much clearer than ours.

The previous box owners must have been very posh because they have things like ‘set of ming vases – fragile!’ or ‘antique grandfather clock – handle with care!’ on them. Instead of the usual sitting room/kitchen/bedroom destinations, they have instructions to ‘place in the Orangery’ or ‘put in wine cellar’. I feel sorry for the boxes, they must feel they have come down in the world as I cross out ‘Ming Vases to the Orangery’ and writing ‘dirty duvet and pillows – need washing before using!’ instead.

In between packing in sweltering heat while my teenagers swan in and out enjoying their summer holidays, I have been enjoying these two things that have cheered me right up. I hope you enjoy them.

Firstly, the best squirrel video I’ve ever seen – and I don’t say that lightly …

And this video I made for all those book lovers out there…

And finally – just to add some excitement, Dog managed to escape AGAIN! See my previous post about the last time this happened… Yet AGAIN I discovered through a local Facebook group that someone had spotted Dog on the roam. She had to have an op recently on some nasty lumps that had appeared. Thankfully she’s fine now, but because of the site of the wounds we had to keep her in for a while so she hasn’t been able to go on long walks.

I knew she was finding it frustrating but I didn’t realise how bad she was until I saw THIS.

Look at her! Striding about without a care in the world! Luckily she escapes so often loads of lovely locals recognised her and got in touch – oh, the embarrassment! – and I dispatched teenager (the one who was supposed to be keeping an eye on Dog) off to get her and return her safely home.

Well, I better get off and start packing the bathroom. Wish me luck and happy summer, everyone!