Reflections of a stormy petrel

I really would if I could. The long aftermath of the move, taking stuff out of storage day after day, is over at last. The last of the bookcases, heavy and unwieldy though it was, has endured its journey in the rain and is now home.

The tale is not over. My flat currently resembles a cross between a building site and a battlefield, and I still have a number of small items to pick from various individual persons through the wonder of Freecycle - that is not exactly a part of the house move, but it ends up being one and the same monster job crawling on day after day. I have to set the flat in order and clean it, and I also have some paying work that needs doing rather fast. (That is not so much a concern; as a translator, which is my paying work, my Unique Selling Point is extreme speed; I am the guy you go to when you needed it done yesterday. Still, it adds to the workload.)

On the other hand, this removes an enormous drain on my pocket - £136.80 a month for the storage alone, plus the price of going there twice a day taking stuff out, plus the surprise expenses. In the last month I have destroyed two suitcases and a trolley, taken three expensive taxi journeys across London, and spent I don't know how much on fast food and drinks on the road. But the real nightmare was the time taken: two journeys from flat to storage plant and back took eight hours every day, and pretty much put my life on hold until they were done.

You may ask, why did I not employ a mover and do it all in one go? For a number of reasons. First, I do not trust movers. Those who moved the first lot of my stuff here not only charged a lot, but destroyed two bookcases in the process (they were cheap and fragile, sure, but nonetheless I could hardly spare them just then) and nearly went off with my digital camera - the one object of value in the lot. I have few friends in London itself and nobody who could recommend me a reliable firm or individual. Also, I did not like the idea of taking the whole thing in at one go and then having to spend days if not weeks straightening out the flat. I preferred to get books and furniture in bit by bit and deal with problems piecemeal. And even so, it will be days before the flat is properly straightened out.

I ended up doing everything alone for months, and it is a wonder that I ever managed it all. There is only one person who really deserves my gratitude in all this, from beginning to end: my mother. Nobody in London did anything to help, and that includes people from whom I had a right to expect it, but she, from Rome, was as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar, a tremendous help in a time of storm, and more than once the difference between seeing it through and ending up on the street. However many times I may find her infuriating to screaming point - and she is certainly not unwilling to scream back - I can say in public and without equivocation that anyone who is lucky enough to have a mother like mine may well kneel before God and thank Him. Other than that, I am grateful to all my online friends for kind words and signs of appreciation, and, as I said, if I could order a round for all of you in my local (and a box of Pakistani sweets for kikei, who is not supposed to drink), I would. Thank you all just for existing.