Comment: Readjusting to real life after moving house

Well, we’re in. And so much for all that bragging about what a moving pro I was - it was as exhausting and time-consuming as it was always going to be.

From running out of boxes the night before we moved, to running out of floor space when the mountain of stuff we’d forgotten we owned arrived from storage, it was an unforgettable few days.

I knew the storage move would be bad when I checked the 50-strong list we’d put together a year ago and found such essential items as ‘toddler bed duvet set’ (our youngest child is seven), two large boxes of records (we don’t currently own a record player) and ‘misc final stuff kitchen and front room’ (100 per cent guaranteed to contain not a single useful item. Isn’t it a known fact that any box bearing the word ‘miscellaneous’ only contains pointless clutter?)

For now, we’ve stuffed most of the boxes in a room and shut the door. The only issue arose when I tried the external door and found that it would only lock from the inaccessable inside. Cue a ninja-style scramble across the wall of boxes to lock the door and keep these precious items - and, y’know, our kids, etc. safe.

I write this four days on, when some sort of emotional stablity has begun to resume, though no room is clutter-free and the road ahead is paved with urgently needed charity shop visits to rehome much of the stuff we should have got rid of a year ago.

We were still swamped by boxes from the first move when the 51 extras arrived, as well as lots of bulky bits of furniture – including two bed frames and no screws to put them back together. They’re in one of the boxes, apparently. We’ll find them eventually.

For now, life goes on much as it did before, albeit with more boxes and less stress about cleaners, movers and all the associated worry and expense that comes with a house move.

All things considered, I’d definitely take this current chaos over the one I was experiencing a week ago.