1. I am feeling much better after taking it… easier over the weekend. I wish I could say I took it easy without qualification, but there was zipping about and visiting the house and keeping the boy occupied while HRH worked over there involved, and while it was not the physical stress of packing, it was also not entirely restful.

2. The kitchen is the hardest room to pack in a house. Every time you fill six boxes, there is still a bunch of stuff left on shelves. I know a lot of the box space is taken up with packing paper around breakables and protective boxes for smaller objects, but still. Please, people, for the love of the gods: stop giving us coffee mugs as gifts. And it is somewhat disheartening to realise that the pantry is actually one of the least-stuffed cupboards, too. This is partially due to the fact that we have been consciously buying less pantry-destined stuff to cut down on what we’ll have to move, which in turn is making dinners creative, to say the least.

3. The paint colours have been chosen. They are:

Kitchen: Cool Current (pale grey-green)
Living room: Mermaid’s Eyes (sage green)
Upstairs hallway: Mantra (pale taupe)
My office: Tahini (deep butter)
The boy’s bedroom: Crepe and Toffee Bar (dark parchment and warm mid-brown)
Downstairs hallway and family room: Macadamia (warm parchment)
Master bedroom: Pyramid (warm taupe) Japanese Garden (very pale green, to go with the warm varnished wood of one wall)

HRH has spent the day pouring primer on all the atrocious colours. Since there are miles of pine trim and moldings in the living room as well as a door and two windows there’s a tonne of masking to do before priming it tomorrow, so he’s stuck back there tonight to get it done or he’ll lose valuable painting time tomorrow and suffer a cascade effect through the rest of the week.

4. My father-in-law went over today and took down the claustrophobia-inducing laundry room wall in preparation for making the room two feet wider, bless him. Now I will actually be able to open the dryer door all the way. He also showed up at the house with a new BBQ.

5. Correspondence-wise, I just did the one final address change with a major utility that needed to be done pre-move. I only have two address changes left, both of which can be be done post-move. I also handled the communications to the moving team and the housewarming list.

Now I think I shall pour myself a glass of wine in one of the pewter goblets (I packed all the regular wineglasses in the first round of kitchen packing; WHAT WAS I THINKING) and settle down with Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, which is very excellent. When the boys get home I shall magically create something from what’s in the pantry and freezer.