Yes, we’re moving again. Back in April, everything went into boxes to be stacked into a shipping container; as yet we’ve nothing to move into, so we’re living in the caravan.
Most of the boxes that came out of the attic hadn’t been unpacked since we moved in. In fact there’s stuff still in boxes from a number of previous moves. It’s stuff that we apparently can’t part with even though it never sees the light of day. There’s the sentimental stuff, Dad’s ‘archive’, inherited must-keep stuff, the handy cos-you-never-know-you-might-need-it stuff, ….. even stuff belonging to family members who took off abroad ‘travelling light’ (you know who you are….).
The ‘When I’m Dead’ box isn’t labelled as such anymore. It was mocked by my sons when they helped with a previous move along with the ‘Not-important-no-need-to-open’ box. Those boxes had sat in an attic for years and I’d forgotten what was in them anyway. It was interesting to rediscover their contents, even though I’m not dead yet and even though the stuff did indeed turn out to be Not Important.
The attic isn’t the only place we had to extricate boxes from. In the little bedroom we euphemistically referred to as ‘the study’, boxes sat inaccessibly beneath, behind or above whatever furniture we’d squeezed in there. One in particular is a big box of photos and memorabilia that I wanted at hand for those reminiscence evenings with the family. What reminiscence evenings, for goodness sake? Like that ever happens, and in any case the box was too heavy to pull out from under so we couldn’t have reminisced over the stuff anyway.
Gareth, struggling with another crumbling hip (now fixed, btw, thank goodness), grumbled about all of my boxes. I should really label and list the ‘Alison’ boxes, the ‘Our’ boxes and the ‘Gareth’ boxes (along with ‘Other People’s’ of course). Looking at the pile of boxes he put aside that he wanted taken to the caravan I was aware of how much stuff is associated with photography, cycling, fishing, dogs……hmph.
Last summer it looked like we’d be selling up and going our separate ways, but hey, ho, we’ve realised that we’re joined at the hip (even if they’re arthritic and/or artificial) and we need each other. We’ll muddle through this new phase in our lives in a new home with a fresh start back in the area we are most familiar with and which is also closer to friends and family.
There is a very funny (Amnesty International, I think) old sketch by John Cleese et al about poverty one-upmanship. The one who’d had it the hardest had been so poor that his family had to live in a shoe box. Our house in Llanelli certainly felt like a shoe box after the houses we've had before. We’ve managed though, to live quite happily in the caravan, and even in a motorhome (with our stuff in storage, of course), but we’d like a home where there’s room to swing a cat. I guess we’ll have to get a cat, then, too, though I'm not sure what the dogs would make of that……or my allergic daughter-in-law for that matter.
As usual I’m wandering off the point……yes, boxes. I don’t want to live in a shoe box and ideally I want somewhere where all of the stuff that is in boxes can immediately find a place. After our search I realised that I was being over-optimistic. I want our new place to be home for life, what’s left of it, but, without a lottery win our choices were limited. What we’ve found is petite and bijou - a bit of a shoe-box again, as it happens, but with scope to expand and definitely in the right place. Such a happy find, though it seems to be taking much too long for us to get in.
Of course, I shouldn’t make light of living in boxes. (Beware -change of mood here) I am very privileged in having a choice at all. These are such hard times for so many and there really is a growing homelessness crisis - people living on the streets with maybe just a cardboard box for shelter. I recently read Raynor Winn’s third book, ‘Landlines’ - another enjoyable read, but one that touches again on the issue of homelessness. She knows all about that. I also watched the BBC series ‘Rain Dogs’ - a raw and often stomach-churning black comedy in which the struggle to maintain ‘home’ and safety is a central theme.
While ‘the Englishman’s home is his castle’ (so it’s been said……and it’s probably because the English are famous for building castles, especially on other peoples’ land) ‘Home’ does usually mean security, but for house dwellers with mortgages or rents, it’s now a fragile concept. Interest rates are reaching unmanageable levels and the cost of living spirals ever higher. We have people out on the streets demanding pay rises while the super-rich continue to take the cream. Out-right rebellion may not be far off - it’s happening elsewhere in the world.
While I browsed Zoopla looking for my dream home yet more refugees and migrants were perilously crossing The Channel and arriving on our shores. It makes me reflect on my own so much more fortunate position. People fleeing war, famine, climate change and oppression, looking to the UK as a haven, arrive without ‘Unimportant-no-need-to-open’ boxes, or any boxes at all, hoping only for safe shelter of any kind and an opportunity to thrive. No doubt there are opportunist felons aboard with them sometimes, but surely not as many as our Home Secretary would have us believe. If you haven’t watched the film ‘Swimmers’, do so. It’s a good story and an eye-opener for what motivates people to leave their homelands and travel so precariously.
I’m also thinking about the stack of stuff I piled up and took to charity - a couple of pictures, some DVD’s, a toast rack, some unused photo albums, lamp shades……stuff that won’t make much difference to anyone really. Stuff and nonsense in the great scheme of things.
When we sold our lovely B&B in 2017 to go travelling it was like a weight lifted off and we had a carefree few years of avoiding the winter and spending the summer living at the beach. Now in post-Covid 2023, instead of the relief of property weightlessness, this time we are experiencing more a sense of ‘Uh-oh’, wondering if we’ve done the right thing. I guess we’ll find out once we have the keys to a little bungalow.
I wish I could remember the fable we were told in school about the ant and the gnat (I think that’s what they were); the gnat enjoying the sunshine and dancing while the ant diligently used the abundance of summer to prepare for the winter. I must be a gnat, as I’ve not given very much thought to fast approaching winter years - oops! There’s no insurance value in any of my boxes - nothing that I can imagine Antiques Roadshow getting excited about; no chance that I’ll appear on the show fainting on being told that some little item of mine is worth a fortune. Hey, ho.
But, whatever comes, I have nothing to complain about and I’ve been very fortunate. I have boxes and boxes of mementos that testify to the fact, and when I am finally boxed (or urned) myself, those boxes will emerge from their dusty corners along with those bestowed on me by the previous generation and they’ll give my family the same joys and pleasures as we have had of wondering what on earth to do with them. Ha, ha!
No comments:
Post a Comment