Packing, day four

On Fridays we usually have a house group here, so we'll take that as an evening off packing. As it happens, hardly anyone was able to come so we and one other couple went out for a drink and some ice-cream at a local restaurant, which was a very pleasant way to spend the evening.

But on Saturday, we were back to the packing business. In the afternoon, Richard clambered over various items stored in our garage, and extracted a vast number of boxes which we had stored for just such an occasion. Some folded in flat-pack form, some just as boxes. I'm not convinced we'll need them all - there must have been at least thirty or forty, some of them huge - but they all came in the house anyway:


First Richard packed away the boys' old computer (which will become our 'guest computer' in the new place) padding the box with some cushions, and coiled up and packed several computer cables (which were rather dusty). Tim sorted out various CDs which were lying around, and a large box of 'computer bits' was added to the collection.

We had also brought in several suitcases which have been stored in the garage. We don't use most of them when travelling, but they're still useful albeit rather old. So the first thing we did in the evening was pack some of our winter clothes. Richard's and my Sweaters, fleeces, sweatshirts, etc went in two large cases. We even found about half a dozen which were old and/or we didn't like them, and decided not to keep them. The better one can go to a charity shop.

Then we packed the clothes Daniel left behind in another large case. Most of them, anyway.

That was easy. Much more difficult was trying to gather up his general 'stuff'. He had done a lot of de-cluttering before leaving, and of course took many things with him. He packed old shoe-boxes with ornaments and other items he wanted to be sure we would keep. But his desk had various clarinet-mending items on it, a couple of lamps, and some stationery. One of the drawers in his chest-of-drawers was packed to the brim with juggling equipment, and other random bits and pieces that may at some point be made into juggling equipment. Dan is quite a hoarder!

Oh, and there were also random bits and pieces on his bookcase: behind the books, hung over the ends, on top of the books. Richard started packing one of the large-sized boxes and I kept finding more and more things to pass him. There's still quite a bit but it's not as bad as it was.

Dan's room is looking fuller and fuller, and we've hardly started: