I always log on to my WordPress account and look at the date of my last post before I start typing. On this occasion I find the longest gap since last posting but there is good reason.

So in the month since last writing we have made the jump from the family home of the last 18 years to a rented property in a nearby village. The dream of finding a remote property to build or renovate as we move towards retirement years still remains (we still figure there is a twilight zone where we remain young and able enough to do a fair percentage of the heavy lifting ourselves). However, we are yet to find the plot to build or the wreck to renovate yet.

The interim has thrown up some interesting challenges already. Not until you move your life of the last 18 years do you realise exactly how much stuff you own. Photos of stacking CDs into boxes in comparison to the game of Tetris have been played out on a much larger scale as I try to introduce a dining room table (measuring 3m long when extended), a couch, three armchairs, two ottomans and a large tv and supporting unit into a medium sized living room. An equation that simply didnt work and proves that we have a long way to go in the current downsizing we attempted before moving.

I have also learnt that when moving and insisting that I can do it all myself with a hired van, I should next time listen to my wife. The move could not have happened without many of our good friends pitching in to help and for that I am eternally grateful.

It was an emotional day when we finally left but I noted that whilst we have left the old house behind, it was the friends & family that created the great memories, the house is where many of the memories happened. The friends and family persist and we will go on to create many more memories.

After just shy of a week of clearing the “Room of Requirement” is nearly no more. I am pleased to report that all bar the last 6 boxes and the heavier items (2 beds and a wardrobe – yes I kid you not) have been distilled to the living room for onward travel. My wife has done a sterling job in sorting and the charity shops, refuse tip and the next property have all been allocated a sufficient number of items to make carriage worthwhile.

It makes me think that in the next chapter of our life we need to be a lot smarter in what we buy. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but necessity rather than desire needs to guide future purchases. I have noted a lot of waste in what we have had to get rid of – things I once desired that remain unopened. Something bought for a rainy day, or was ‘too good’ to use being handed to a charity shop as it has value but of no particular use to us in our onward life.

Some items were of a much more transient value. A fad of the time possibly crowned by a Facebook post I saw recently asking if anyone still has CDs or DVDs in their house? I still have VHS.

Anyway the cleanse is almost complete and I take the oath never to find ourselves in the position again. Experience has taught me that materially I don’t need much of what I desire.

For those visitors to the York household that have been appearing for years at our door they will have heard of our own personal ‘Room of Requirement’. Readers of the Harry Potter books will know it’s a phrase we have borrowed from J.K. and, though ours is a smaller scale, I will claim it is no less impressive. Impressive that is, until you come to move house and have to empty it……

So our R.o.R. is housed in our loft that is entirely floored and runs approximately 30m along the length of the bungalow. The passage is maybe only 2m wide but the rafters extend a space of another 2m either side before the crouch space is too low to pack any more in. Each and every rafter division is brimming with goodies that have been assembled over 20 years of married life and labelled with phrases like “this will come in useful in the future” or “I paid good money for that I’m not binning it”. The children have their own treasured possessions, a dolls pram, a favourite teddy “too precious to go to charity” or “will be played with again” that has been forgotten over the years, the odd Christmas or Birthday present that has yet to be unwrapped.

So far these are my favourite treasures: a collection of glasses that have survived packing and repacking from Derby to Dumbarton and the direct to loftspace in Helensburgh. Buddha is contemplating what to put in them.

The Armageddon supplies constructed by my wife the survivalist.

And a multitude of Art, out of which I picked this from my travels in Canada as a much younger man:

So far we calculate we are a sixth of the way through unraveling the history of the past 20 years and beyond. We may find time to empty it before we move out. Watch this space.

Since being home in the day, rather than the office as I have been for most of my adult life, I have gained a slight addiction to TV quiz shows. For the most I dislike daytime television; I was delighted to see Jeremy Kyle’s show removed from air. I don’t warm to Phil and Holly either – I have nothing against them but it’s not for me.

During my time in the office I used to arrive home for a slice of Pointless, The Chase or Eggheads whilst I ate dinner. This consciousness has now expanded to include Tenable, Tipping Point and my current TV favourite Impossible! I am delighted also to see that Countdown prevails on Channel 4 and that 15 to 1 has been resurrected.

My thirst for quizzes also extends to the Radio. Even in the office years I indulged in PopMaster hosted by Ken Bruce on his Radio 2 morning show and this remains a firm favourite. I think if I were to go on a quiz show, pop music of the 80s may have to be my declaration of a specialist subject

So now I just need to turn fascination into application. I have the forms pending for each of The Chase and Tipping Point. I’m neither brave nor clever enough to attempt 15 to 1, or enough of a wordsmith to attempt Countdown. Perhaps, some practice at a local pub first though…..

When I started writing the blog I knew at some point I would run out of ideas or have nothing that I valued enough at the current time to spur me to write. I also promised myself that when the time came, as it has now, that I would still commit thoughts to word rather than let a week become two, become a month etc before writing again. As this is the first time I have come across this block I can write this fear down if nothing else.

Life plans seem to have hit a pause right at the moment. The sale of the house progresses with an offer being made but there is a chain involved and this causes delay in the formal paperwork being signed. Our own search for a new home has resulted in finding properties that we like but can’t afford and properties we don’t like enough but can. This with one exception, but communication with the seller is proving nigh impossible (potentially a story for a later date). The latter situation necessitates us looking for an interim rental property but that is itself a difficult market to commit to until the formality of our own sale is complete.

As I write I have the TV on in the background and see adverts for Channel 4’s adaptation of Catch-22. I can’t help feeling the whole house buying / selling process is based on Heller’s work!

When I was a much younger man I wasn’t bad at video games. I grew up on a diet of 1st generation arcade games such as Space Invaders, Galaxians, Scramble and Tempest, but my favourite of all these shoot-em-up style games was Defender. It’s not an easy game to recreate on a modern console successfully because of the numerous levers and buttons involved in the game play and these I never did master. It was my favourite game but I was no better than average at it.

During my University years the game that appealed to my mathematical nature was one of the first arcade puzzle games – Tetris. I played it for hours and this time I was good at it. On the machine housed in the Cardiff University Union I traded high scores with a fellow Maths Undergrad by the name of T.O.M. Those who remember the painstaking way that you were allowed to enter three initials against the high score will understand the use of the periods.

So today I found again a use for my skill in the aforementioned machine and took great delight in it. Far too much delight my wife will tell you. Having found the perfect wine box for DVDs a couple of days earlier I discovered those wine boxes left too small to perfectly hold a DVD sideways. The solution I found can be seen in the picture below in this hybrid of Blu-Ray and DVD in one box. Tetris at its best!

In moving house we have decide we need to start to rationalise possessions and that we carry forward into the next home. Today has seen a polar expedition of the two freezers we have kept stocked over the last few years. I’m sure that we have gone back and forth to them many times over those years and, times before, attempted to rationalise the contents.

So why do I find today a pork chop from 2015? Something that has survived the prior rationalisation or developed a higher ability in the game of hide and seek. It’s not the only example of a dated foodstuff residing at the back of the freezer but it’s the oldest.

Harder to figure is the remnants of pre-cooked leftover meals that the freezer has erased the pseudo-sharpie marker title on the lid. With our marriage comprising of one vegetarian and one confirmed carnivore, the relatively simple task of we’ll just take pot luck on that once ice cream tub housing a brown block of ice (that looks a bit like chilli-con-carne) typically makes for disappointment for one of us.

In our next home I’m sure we’ll stock the freezer accordingly and catalogue everything that goes in. Inventory everything that comes out and stock-take at every quarter to ensure the log we have taken is accurate. I’m equally sure this will be abandoned approximately 2 days into the routine.

Is this the same for everyone?

It has long been a tradition in our marriage that Karen and I attempt to plan date nights for each other (together I mean!). Mostly, this has been to restaurants that one of us has mentioned or theatre / cinema visits to stage and films we want to see. Some of our attempts have varied from this more obvious path including our latest date to a series of lectures at the Glasgow Science Centre – “The Beginners Guide to the Universe”.

The four lectures were extremely well presented and fully utilised the capabilities housed in the planetarium held within the Science Centre. For anyone nearby to Glasgow I would fully encourage them to go visit the Planetarium and take in one of the shows.

Being a very amateur astronomer or, better put, stargazer I have spent an amount of time looking up to the skies. A passion that first began back at University still excites me when I see dark cloudless heavens painted by the stars. Karen fortunately shares my passion and the lectures expanded our knowledge of where and when to search for planets and stars / constellations we should be able to recognise.

And again back to the ambition of the next home and a place where light pollution is low enough to allow us to enjoy this hobby more and more often. In the meantime, back to more reading the star charts and waiting for the clouds in the area to disperse.

A reminder where to look for future shows: https://www.glasgowsciencecentre.org/whats-on/planetarium-lates?fbclid=IwAR07etlU-SFdZkH3M69LCqFz1BymLILDdJ1K0orgvZSwf832195alP15s1Q

Karen and I went for a drive today in search of potential locations to look for our next home. I have mentioned in previous posts that we are selling the house due to being empty nested and our current house being too big for us. Today, on that drive, I spotted two things that amused me and summed up my feelings towards the move quite well.

The first was a bumper sticker on a camper van that read “Adventure Before Dementia”. That pretty much sums up the attitude we have to taking on a project – a renovation or self build in our case – before we are too old to do so. I suspect the couple in the camper van, at least I hope the couple in the camper van, had reached the same conclusion as us and have already embarked on their own adventure.

The second thing was the train pictured above. Whilst I think the name on the front is Florence we very much know this as the Hogwarts Express. I took great pleasure in reading the early novels to our daughter and recall very clearly how Harry stood on platform 9&3/4 not quite knowing what the future held. Full of anticipation and trepidation at leaving his old life behind but excited and eager for the adventure to come. With adventure comes an amount of risk that is equally scary and invigorating and I think the HP novels illustrate that well. I sort of feel the same now but I’m determined to have the adventure (before dementia).

The reason for the absence of a week between this entry and the last is that the family took a holiday. It feels strange to say I took a holiday as the weeks grow between my last work as an IT contractor and what will be my next. I’m thoroughly enjoying time at home (or more particularly doing the things I want to do rather than have to do), and being ‘on holiday’ for a week further validated that for me.

At the start of the year I tried to map out a number of scenarios regarding our finances in an attempt to judge how long a break I could take between contracts. Ideally the answer would have been that I didn’t need to return at all and the idea was born that we should start looking for an alternate way to live. Put simply, more frugally.

It’s for another blog entry all of it’s own the ups and downs of selling a house but suffice to say we are not there yet. The house and the way we currently live dictates how frugal or otherwise we can be, so my next task on the computer is to turn again to the job market and review what’s out there. I can’t say I’m in a hurry to get back!