Moving house is the most stressful of all tasks. I have read that divorce is and, yes it is. Very. Bereavment too is stressful. just as redundancy and getting married in the first place. Personally I think creeping out the back door as hubby is coming through the front gets the heart beating like nothing on earth but thats only my opinion and not backed up by any scientific evidence. But moving house is very traumatic too. It has every ingredient for stress. Apart from the physical effort required packing things up and shifting them around in preparation for the removers, there is the sheer mental effort needed. The sorting out of what must go, stay, be given away, sold or left in the front garden for the Romanian gypsies to collect is tantamount to huge business decisions of HS2 proportions. It would be easier to decide on Scottish independence than whether there is enough time to sell the twenty year old deckchairs on eBay or dump them over the back fence. And what about the tools in the garden shed? God they’ve been there for decades and never been used but might just be required in the new place – even though you haven’t got a garden where you’re going it’s still a tough call!
I had to do it recently. The family house of five generations has gone. Sold. Is no more in the Heard family empire. I sorted out and disposed of lots. Kept more. And reminisced over it all. the photos were the worst. Of course they were kept but had to be viewed first. Also the Daily Telegraph orbit of my Mum, placed by a friend of my son, was a reminder of all that happened in that house. But really I was lucky. It all had to be done quickly and there was little time for too much sadness. In fact, if truth be told, I even felt a little guilty that I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I should. I had fully intended to write a brief history of the house and the family just to give the new owners a snapshot of how it had been a family house throughout. They, a young family with two year old twins, perfect for carrying on the tradition, had to make do with me telling them that there were no ghosts and it was a happy house. It was and I hope it always will be.
I will return to my family, it’s history, and the characters involved, at a later date. They deserve and merit their stories being told.