Finally on the move?

Perhaps it's time to announce that it looks like we're buying a flat. I have been a bit wary of saying anything to anyone, after our unsuccessful attempt to buy a flat in our block last year - but though we haven't exchanged contracts yet (hope to do so this week) it all seems to be going through smoothly this time around. Of course we keep touching wood every time we think or talk about it - actually we should probably be carrying little bits of wood around in our pockets, or like the Log Lady in Twin Peaks, remember her? Funny how we still cling to these superstitions, no matter how secularised we are in the rest of our lives...

Anyway perhaps I will say no more on the subject until it is signed and sealed. But we have decided to prepare ourselves for the putative move by starting to clear out our possessions - of which we have far too many anyway so it is a Good Thing To Do. In the past we used to move every few years, so would have a cathartic clear-out at every move, but we have been where we are now for about 7 and a half years so we have been acquiring without shedding.

Mainly books. We ran out of bookshelf space long ago, and a while back I adopted a one-in-one-out policy. We have now weeded a very large stack of novels and unread non-fiction books and yesterday I spent several hours putting them up for sale on Amazon. (If you're interested, you can view my storefront here). By the time we were leaving to go out for dinner at Abi's, I had sold one!! Very exciting, even if only for the grand sum of £1. Thing is, now I obsessively check my email to see if I have sold any more - none so far...

Today I have gone through my clothes and cupboards and filled three bin liners with stuff for the charity shop and another of rubbish. It's a start - and quite satisfying too.

Next stage is getting rid of the furniture that there just isn't room for in the new place. Anyone for a lectern??


This was an impulse buy from the junk shop on Brixton Hill ... last summer? It looked smaller on the street than it turned out to be once we got it into the flat! I think we thought we might one day live in a huge farmhouse with an enormous kitchen where we could use this for standing cookery books on... Also, even though its tracery is obviously rather damaged, it has a fantastic dedicatory plaque:

which announces that it was 'Presented to the Dulwich Road Wesleyan Mission Hall by the Trustees as a Memorial of the late Miss Craig's interest in and generosity towards the work of the Mission. 1898'. The antiquarians in us got the better of us! Who was this Miss Craig and how did her interest and generosity manifest itself? And how did the lectern come to the sad pass of sitting outside the junk shop on Brixton Hill...? At least we have admired and loved it while it has been with us... But alas, no room for extraneous lecterns in the new flat.

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This evening we have given ourselves 'repetitive form injury', as K so wittily put it just now, by filling out - in duplicate - visa forms for Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, where we are going in April!! Very exciting - though we have not had much time to think about it. It's an organised tour, so once the visa hassle is out of the way we don't actually have to do anything, except turn up at the airport at the right time - but the forms are a killer, especially since we hardly handwrite anything any more. Next thing to arrange is to be fingerprinted at the Iranian consulate - an arrangement insisted upon by Iran ever since the British government introduced compulsory fingerprinting for any Iranian citizens wishing to enter the UK. Ahhh, so great to live in a liberal democracy...