Move to the Matchbox

 

Our travelling life continues: from the refugee encampment in the basement front room of the Shoebox we have moved next door to the Matchbox.  To refresh your memories: in the picture above, taken from East Hill, you can see the Shoebox, which is the darker blue of the pair of houses on the corner of Crown Lane.  Beside it, a paler blue/grey, is the Matchbox.  Paul's tenants obligingly moved out last week so we have been able to move across in order to free the Shoebox up for builders who have to go in and dry-line the sea-facing interior walls with lath and plaster - I'll spare you the technical reasons.  Suffice it to say it's one of those irritating things that has to be done at vast expense but which nobody notices afterwards. 

 

We hired a couple of men from a local removals company to give us a hand and it was all comparatively painless.  It's a little strange to have moved house again after five months, and it will be even stranger in around three months' time when we move back.  By that stage, hopefully, we shall be able to look forward to a degree of stability.  I keep on remembering all those statements about moving house being the third most stressful experience in one's life: but in fact I'm so delighted to be back in a working kitchen that the stress has been reduced.  An added bonus is that the two properties are so close that we don't need to have a new telephone number: we just brought the extension phones over!  and our computers can link up via wi-fi with the router next door, so the disruption is pretty minimal. 

 

Disruption will however continue: scaffolding on the street side is due to go up at the end of the week for repainting both façades so that they match.  I am hoping that it will all be worth it in the end, even if we are on bread and water for months!

 

Antony Mair