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Time off for good behaviour

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Remind me NEVER to do this again...

Depending on which part of Cumbria you happen to be reading this in, I’m either that strange-looking new guy that’s only been around for a couple of months, or that weird-looking old guy who’s got in the way of proper news each of the last 301 Fridays.

Good news either way – I’m away for a couple of weeks. Part holiday, part house move. If any of you are currently going through the same nightmarish world of solicitors, estate agents, worrying about when you’ll exchange and where you put the parcel tape, I sympathise.

It is a very odd experience to take all your belongings, wedge them into boxes and then hand them over to a couple of guys you don’t know and trust that they’ll show up at your new place with it all.

Last time I moved, VHS tapes were the heavy/bulky stuff, along with vinyl records. Now it’s DVDs and CDs. Should I ever move again, I’ll just need to make sure the right cloud follows me.

There’s always that worrying moment when your box of music is already heavy, but there’s a gap at the top that you need to fill with something light so it doesn’t get crushed. Pro tip: remember to mark what’s in the box on the outside – if nothing else, it should give the removals team a chuckle.

Some of mine are: CDs and underpants, DVDs and a dressing gown, and dinner plates and a cushion. Unpacking will be a nightmare. Presuming I survive the ensuing chaos, I’ll be back On Friday the 13th of April. Remember to water the plants.

This post first appeared as the second piece in my column/page in The Mail and the News & Star, on the 23rd of March 2018. It was re-titled as "Boxing clever to help house move go smoothly" and included a couple of appropriate pics of boxes, and a For Sale sign. Amazingly, despite my name being in a massive font at the top of the page, one of them had the caption "Pack up your troubles: The Grenfells are moving house". Whoever they are, I wish them luck with their move.

 Dear God - has this been a painful process. There are only 3 people in the chain, the first being a cash buyer. You've then got our buyer and us, and we're moving into a newly completed place so are at the end of the chain. We've all had a date in the diary for months... and yet with just days to go we hadn't exchanged, our buyer hadn't booked a removals firm and the cash buyer seemed to think the date was the following month.

 We've subsequently had to shift the date... into the middle of a 2 week holiday away. I'll need another holiday to recover.

(CD A-Z: You are joking, right? They're in a box with my underkeks.)

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