Thinly Applied

This moving business is hard work! We've spent the last 3 days 'taking possession' of our Cambridge house. Presumably at the end of it all we'll need to be exorcised from it?

The taking possession bit is relatively quick and easy - collect the keys from the agency, go, open the front door, open all the other windows and doors to let the fresh air in, having been closed up for several months. Discover that the patio door just won't open. Check the inventory.

When I was a bit younger and I was renting student houses the inventory was a lot easier - a list of the furniture, cutlery etc, and a stern warning not to break anything. Five minutes to check it through. No longer is it so easy. Our inventory, for an unfurnished house ran to 22 sides of A4. Half a page just to deal with the front door - for example: brass door handle, tarnished, scratched; 5 lever lock with key hole cover, scratched, surrounding woodwork repainted in slightly different shade of paint.

22 pages of mind numbing tediousness that we had to pore our way through. A recurring theme was 'paint thinly applied' - looks OK, but when you examine it close up there's hints of the coat below showing through. But with nearly 40 doors and windows in the house I wouldn't blame the painter for wanting to get the job finished. I wonder how many people's faith is like that - on the surface it's all shiny and glossy, but when you look a bit closer there's underlying stuff showing through that hasn't been dealt with.

And with that it was teatime. We discovered our local chippy.

The countdown to Cambridge starts

It's suddenly all becoming very real. Our move to a new life in Cambridge is now less than three weeks away. This process of becoming a vicar that started about 4 years ago is about to step up a gear into actually starting my training.

I finished work at the end of May (actually, I was offered generous terms by my employer to seek alternative leisure opportunities!), and since then I've been busy getting our house ready to rent out. This week was a bit of a nightmare though.

On Sunday we kind of officially 'left' St Mary's Ferndown. We'd had our leaving party, we were prayed for, we received our leaving gifts, but we'll still be turning up for the next 3 Sundays until we move.

Part of my severance package included training, so I took a course in Advanced Microsoft Word. This meant Monday and Tuesday in Manchester, which just happened to be the same 2 days that were the end of the school year - and the last days at those schools - for both Beth and Isaac, and Tasha's last days at work. So not significant days at all.

Wednesday was a long planned day at Chessington World of Adventures (which is tiny!), and Thursday was my Nana's funeral.

So between 0515 on Monday and 0015 on Friday I reckon I did about 1000 miles, 'led' my first family funeral, read my first eulogy, did my first preach at my family, and consumed 4 cans of Red Bull.

Friday and Saturday by comparison were relatively leisurely - I painted 2 sheds, took Beth to Guide Camp and received impromptu visitors.

17 days and counting until the men with boxes arrive.