QOO

I am Queen of Organising. QOO.

I have changed all my addresses. I have created online accounts for everything I can create them for. I have transferred money to wherever it is needed (I am about to do this, but everyone knows time is not really linear, so it's as good as done). I have packed most stuff to store for eight months in Salford; special items for eight months in Chester; other special items in Reading; clothes for warm weather for the next eight months in my big red suitcase; and clothes for -16 type weather in Berlin in a different smaller suitcase.

I have found temporary homes for plants, teapots, hula hoops and wooden Buddhas all over London. I have created a little folder thing in gmail called WHO HAS MY STUFF? to remind me where half my belongings are when I come home again. I will remember (for example) that I am not giving my much loved (and long coveted) 10-year old bright yellow secondhand cardi to my sister, just lending it to her. Sister to note that this is here in writing - lent, not gave.

I have pretty much finished up all things at work, with a few minor bits and bobs to finish off tomorrow. With Auntie Ailsa's funeral on Friday, I have had to squish things up somehow and do it all in one day less. How do I manage to make things fit exactly into whatever time I have? I wonder. It always happens. It's like I subconsciously know exactly how long anything and everything will take and my brain adjusts the necessary speed of my activity accordingly. Always happens. It's something to be marvelled at for sure, and to be extremely grateful for.

With that, I now need to transfer money to bring the future to the present moment and to make it past tense and done.

My life in 15 boxes

I've had enough now. My room is white and empty. I am trying to move away from words like ending, bare and cold; and fill my mind with words like peace, space, beginnings...

I don't like packing.

Plant distribution

Another important issue: the distribution of my babies - no pressure here.

Sheena is taking my 10 year old peace lily (Lily) and my seven year old money tree (nameless). A random trailing one (also nameless) that I rescued from an office years ago is now going to trail over my current office's cupboards (not that they know yet) and two are going home to try and survive my parents' neglectful behaviour.

These last two used to be Raul the yucca (singular) that I rescued from their back garden 10 years ago. Raul became three when he started to rot from the inside out, so I renamed his new three parts as God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Jesus died a year or so ago and came back to life for Easter of that year, before departing for good. God and the Holy Spirit are still going strong. They have lasted (in one form or another) around 20 years now, at least. I am sure they will survive eight months.

Mushrooms

I am trying to eat all my food in an attempt to aid the packing process.

I've had this little pot of dried mushrooms in my cupboard for well over two years, probably more like four. Last night I made a lovely aubergine, mushroom and juicy vine tomato sauce to eat with rice. It rocks and the mushrooms had a delicious meaty chewiness to them.

I wonder though, are four-year old mushrooms likely to do anything bad to me...?

Great Aunt Ailsa

One of the most wonderful, inspirational women I have ever met died this evening aged 96. I just found out. She died at 8pm and I feel strange that I was chatting and laughing at the time. I feel I should have somehow known. But then, one of her favourite things was laughing. Things to do that would make her happy:

• Love with all my heart
• Be happy and laugh a lot
• Have faith in myself
• Trust my instincts
  
• Carry on where she left off - 70 years of healing

I'm never going to see her again. I don't want to forget what matters.

Speed

Hmm, well I don't seem to have much speed. One box only this evening, but this one has been clothing. Deciding what to wear for the next eight months is not an easy decision I can tell you - it's hard enough deciding what to wear tomorrow! I still have a pile of 'maybes' and I haven't started on the footwear...

Mr Hippo

One and a half hours and two boxes packed:

(1) One box with Mr Hippo and outdoors gear.
(2) One box with Great Uncle Bulgaria, bedding and towels.

This is Mr Hippo when he still had two eyes. He has an air hole in the box, for anyone that might be worried.

Packing it up

Today is officially the first day of packing. Now my birthday is over, it is time to get serious. I have to tell you, before I do, that over the weekend I ate my own weight in the most delicious form of sugar I have ever consumed. Check out 'little lime cakes' at the Gluttonous Vegan website here and if you make any, please bring me one. Yummy!

Anyway, in my first attempt to start packing, I picked up a birthday card from my friend Kathy who moved to Thailand in February last year. It's been sitting at the foot of my bed for a year to keep me focused. It has this comment on the front: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you imagined." On the inside there's a little picture of our rooms in our old house this time last year, and then a plane and a sunshine and the world, then me and Kathy together somewhere random for my birthday this year. She's only a month out, but she was right. It seems that visualisation has worked a treat for me and it's taken into account the fact that I'm usually a bit late for everything.

Now I need to start focusing on my little stone cottage in the countryside. Then there's the small issue of packing...

Three weeks and counting

By way of background, I got an email entitled 'Offer you can't refuse' way back in August. The offer was to go and live in Hong Kong for three months and write. As it turned out, the author of the email was right. It's time for me to change things, so this is what I'm doing. Although I have some thoughts, I've no idea exactly what I'll be doing, I have to confess. Neither do I know what the outcome will be. All I know for sure is that I have agreed eight months off work and I have booked my flights: 10 days in Thailand and three months in Hong Kong.

I have three weeks left of work and three weeks left in this house before I move out. There's going to be a lot of endings and I'm not very good with them, so I might wait a while before the next post.