Phew.

I felt inspired to write something for the first time in a long while as Bam and I are moving today. Well, technically we've already moved.
See, we had a bit of an interesting week so the build-up to the move wasn't quite as organised as it could have been! Let me explain.

For two weeks now I haven't really had time to breathe, seeing people for the last time, dinners, cocktails, coffees. So last weekend was my leaving party, right? All the girls, Div, Frenchie, Bam were there and the other random people who mean a lot to me but not in the sense of this blog. I mean, in this blog WE are goddesses and names are not allowed. So yes, basically, it ended up drunkenly at G Rd, our flat, where one man who will remain nameless managed to be so angered by a girl who will remain nameless (I think they were equally at fault), that they ended up in a punchout. Police were involved. Charges pending? FUN. So my last week in London involved working full days with so much to do, while taking a short half an hour break to write a WITNESS STATEMENT. Fun fun fun.

And then I caught a cold, which I passed to Bam Bam, or vice versa, I'm not sure. So now we're coughing and spluttering and wheezing but with the week and the impending move, smoking like chimneys. So we reach Thursday and turns out Bam's new apartment is NOT a sure thing. Like, as in - the only way you can move in is if you pay us 6 weeks rent. So, £4000 is not a nice thing to have to come by, right? I mean, that's 4 times the average London salary. Angels saw us in need and stepped in in the shape of, well, in the shape of someone. They got the apartment, only after Bam spent 6 and a half hours in the letting office, of which hopefully she'll tell you more later. Suffice to say, she came home and told us that as she left (as they were closing up shop), she heard them breathe a collective sigh of relief. Meanwhile I was panicking because we had SO MUCH TRASH that fitting it in to our normal rubbish bin was IMPOSSIBLE. I'm serious. We bought a roll of jumbo heavy duty rubbish bags - seven bags of the most extraordinary shite and a table were lifted at 10 am from our poor little flat in to the back of Scottish 'Dougie the Rubbish Man's' truck. Bye bye £40 - he really deserved a tip, but how much do you tip a rubbish man, 5%? 10%? While I was pondering this, he left, but let it be known that I am eternally grateful to him. Btw, should anyone need his services, he said bodies in bags are extra. I'm still waiting to hear from him if he finds the skeleton I lost...

So next, our 11 am shift: the moving van. Let me just say that I booked Dougie on Friday, Bam booked Yellow Man With a Van (yes, seriously) yesterday... as it wasn't even sure we could move in to her apartment until Friday evening. Anyway - we told the moving guy about slightly less possessions than we ended up having... I mean, who knew it was 7 boxes instead of 5, and 20 bags instead of 10? It was impossible to have a full picture so.... well, let's pray we don't pay a million for it.
Want to know why I don't know how much it will be? Because poor Bam and J are in the van (or maybe out of it already?) moving stuff to the Soho apartment. K has headed off to catch the bus to meet them there. I'm here, by myself, trying to keep my sanity about me as I stare at the mountain (and I mean Mountain - this is like Everest) of stuff I am determined to take with me. I have two options - cry or pack. So of course I picked a third and decided to write in the blog.

As I stare at my nearly empty room, I have but one thought - I wonder when I will next sleep and how I will fit in meeting D and Mr Kennedy this evening, at different times, while going to Soho to see the new apartment and carrying the last forgotten items over. And then dropping the keys off tomorrow morning, seeing L and then catching up with the Nazi, Bam and Divorcee.

So BASICALLY, the realisation hasn't hit that I'm moving and I won't be back. When K forgot her phone and came back, I opened the door and stood outside with my takeaway coffee (thank you K and J!) and realised that the sun was trying to peek out from behind the clouds. I looked at the sign for G Rd and realised I had forgotten to take pictures of my favourite places for my mother, who has an art project at hand supposedly. And I, for a moment, realised I wouldn't see the London sun from my own door for quite some time - and then I heard K coming down the stairs and I prayed that she hadn't seen the laptop open, which would have proved to her I wasn't doing anything useful yet (sorry Bam :-( ) and then I came back to reality. Reality being that I don't know if I will ever truly leave London - I'm just on an extended visit.

But I'll keep you updated on that. x