Packing, day two

Yes, I am going to write about every detail of the packing process! I hope we won't have to do it again, but if it works without too much pain and stress, I want a record for the future. Besides, it might motivate us to keep going if I write every day about what we've done:

We decided to start on the dining room last night. Some things must be left, of course, but we thought we could pack the contents of the dresser, most of the two bookcases which are in there (non-fiction) and maybe the boys' old computer.

The dresser has a cupboard at the bottom with two shelves, one of which contained board games. We decided to discard three of these, and packed the remaining thirty or forty, even though we haven't played many of them for years. But since we'll have a guest flat, we want to equip it with useful things and board games are ideal. We'll keep a few favourites (Rummikub, Mah-jong, Scrabble, Balderdash etc) in our living room of course.

Cleo, our nervous oldest cat, has always liked boxes. So she thought we were making a new space for her. Richard had quite a battle to get her out!


The other shelf in the cupboard had lots of random stuff: discarded computer parts, about four boxes of computer discs (yes, the old so-called 'floppy' type), four or five bottles of wine, a couple of bottles of paint, and about 20 jars of jam made in the past few months. Richard and Tim sorted through the discs, and threw out a load of rubbish. We then packed one box of discs (the ones containing original software which we've upgraded, mostly). Richard put aside a few computer bits (a keyboard and a couple of mice) to be used elsewhere..

Then there was the top part of the dresser. A shelf with: lots of computer manuals and guides, a box of chocolate bars, and some random chemistry bits and pieces. And a glass-fronted cupboard section containing: jigsaw puzzles, boxes of folders, and a vast assortment of stamps and stamp books, from the days when Tim was interested in stamps.

The chocolate went in the fridge. That was easy. It should have gone there a couple of weeks ago, really. The computer manuals - which used to take up the entire shelf - were sorted, a few discarded, and the rest packed. We're not entirely sure what to do with the stamps, since Tim has rather lost interest but there might well be some valuable ones in the collection, so those got packed too. And we've no idea what to do with the chemistry bits.

Anyway, the dresser is now mostly empty:


Just a few things still sitting on it, their fate to be decided: two old scanners (not working, but they might do...), an anglepoise light, the random chemistry bits, and a few bottles left from parties.

Daniel's room doesn't look too different, but here it is for the record:



We didn't even make a start on either of the bookcases, nor the computer. Just sorting the dresser took a couple of hours, and that's quite enough in this kind of heat.