The house is empty now apart from the room next door which is full of cardboard boxes, bin bags and piles of plates, cutlery and books ready for the removal firm to pack tomorrow. It feels strange to be going but thankfully it is nothing like the pain of last time as then I was saying goodbye to the home that I had loved and now I am just looking forward to having somewhere which is my own again.
Packing is always poignant because you have constant reminders of the past and we have been pretty ruthless this time so treasured possessions from the past have ended up going on their final journey to the charity shop or the dump which brought back memories of

Saddest of all for me was disposing of the diorama that the children and I had made five years ago for my son to play with his Lord of the Rings figures on. He is no longer a boy anymore and this was a sharp reminder of this.

When I left Cardinham I felt that the whole house was alive with the ghosts of my past but this place does not feel as haunted, it has been in many ways a waiting room, the Wood between Worlds of Narnia with me preparing to begin life properly again though there has been much happiness here too. I think, for example, of my lover and her preparing a Burns Night supper for me when we had not long met and her joy as she danced for me.

So raise a glass for me tonight and wish me well for in two days I will be gone from here.