Yesterday I squeezed the last woolly jumper into a ‘pack lll’ cardboard box to be shipped out to Cyprus. Yes, jumper! because it gets really cold in the winter apparently, there’s a hot water bottle in there somewhere too. Our bedroom was a cardboard city with stacks of boxes filling the room. It’s been so long since we moved house I’d forgotten boxes have names (l, ll, lll) according to size. The weird thing with packing boxes is that as soon as you have taped up the box you have just packed, your memory is instantly wiped of what was in it…however much you stare at it thinking, I just put my stuff in there, it’s impossible to remember whether they were shoes, scarves, knickers or whatever else was lying round in your drawers a minute earlier. So inevitably you must rip off the sellotape and look inside, just to be sure, before sealing it up again and reaching for the sharpie, that’s now sealed inside….

Packing up what I’ll need for two years has been a stressful experience – in the early hours of the morning I’ve found myself composing ‘to do’ lists – not unusual perhaps – but in columns? One for home, one for work, one for potential work, one for ‘remind the children’. After 15 years in this house where our children climbed trees, hosted sleepovers, celebrated birthdays and eventually clattered in at 3am to make tea & toast, there’s a poignant finality about moving on. But it’s definitely happening and since the removal van drove off, all my shoes are on their way to Cyprus, and where they go I must follow!

Today was the start of many farewells, as I attended another work meeting for the last time. Tweeting comments from the debates and discussions, felt a little bit lighter, even if it was Saturday. I couldn’t help smiling as I packed down the ‘most complicated and hard to erect’ pull-up banners – a newly purchased legacy for my colleagues to remember me by. Like Mary Poppins, I may be ‘practically perfect in every way’ – but the new banners say otherwise. Although I’m thinking…this may just make it easier for whoever follows on. “Of course, she was a disaster when it came to pull-up banners, you know.”

I’ve decided to record this new chapter of my life in a blog. Why? Because life’s about sharing the journey….so here goes.

mf