It’s been a weird week.

It’s been packing and unpacking and cleaning and recleaning.

It’s been shouting with letting agents and smooching with them.

I’ve been stressed as a nervous hamster wired on coffee.

But I think I’m coming out the end of it now and thank fuck for that.

They say that moving house is one of the most stressful things to do. Bar marriage. Bar divorce. Bar adopting a feral albino skunk.

This was the eleventh move in as many years. A move where it turned out I didn’t move. It turned out I just packed everything into boxes and then unpacked them again in the same rooms.

Which initially felt kind of shit. Kind of like going backwards. Kind of like the monkey on my shoulder was playing with my expectations and pulling my hair. Kind of like I wanted to cry.

But it was kind of okay.

Maybe I don’t have itchy feet. Maybe I just have a love of boxes.

All the spider-strewn boxes. Full of forgotten things that were just waiting for the Great Packing Event to be rediscovered.

The sequence of passport photos tracking me across my teenage years. The series of school photos documenting my trendy array of bowl cuts. The diary from when I was ten years old with a short story stuck between the pages. The lollipop stick from the ice-cream I was given when I fainted in a Spanish market.

All of these things I wouldn’t have remembered if it weren’t for (not) moving.

So as I’m unpacking, finding new homes for the things that used to live in the cupboard-on-the-left but now chill out in the cupboard-on-the-right, it’s a strange kind of fun.

It’s a journey down memory lane.

It’s a throw out the chaff and blow-dry the cobwebs thing.

It’s a start again but older and wiser.

*Less of the older, please*

So even though the last month has been sadly lacking any major writing progress, it’s been full of writing ammunition.

And all I can say is; maybe I was hungry, maybe I needed a piss, or maybe I just wasn’t big on long endings. But, for your eyeball delectation, here’s the adventures of Doris Dormouse. Written by me in my best handwriting. Aged ten. Typed with all the mistakes

***

Doris Dormouse

Doris, who was a Dormouse, trudged along the dusty gravel road, kicking up great clouds of dust. She was heading for a nice holiday home where she was going to stay for the summer holidays. As she carried her little blue bag which was embroidered with gold thread saying D.D., she came across a poor little squirrel who was crying by the road. Doris was touched by the way the squirrel was acting for she was one of those Dormice that are very friendly to other inhabitants of the land.

“Hello,” she said hoping the squirrel would hear her, for he was much bigger than she was, “aren’t you meant to be up a tree playing with your friends, especially on a nice day like this?”

“I know!” wailed the squirrel who seemed to have heard her, “I fell out of the tree and hit my head, and know I’ve forgotten how to climb up a tree!”

“Oh! That is bad” exclaimed Doris. Then after a little thought, Doris said: “Perhaps….. you would like to live with me for a while, until your memory of ‘How to climb trees’ comes back?”

“Would you really?” said the squirrel with such hopefulnes in his voice that Doris just had to say yes. So she did.

“Yipeeeeeeeee!” rejoiced the squirrel, who was so pleased that he decided to let Doris ride the rest of the way to her holiday home that she was sharing with him, on his back (even though they did take a wrong turning or two!).

At last the two of them arrived at the place that they were going to stay for the next couple of weeks. It had a green door with a yellow doorknob. Doris went in and then had to assist Squirt (the squirrel) by pulling him through!

The inside was beautiful. First of all, Doris and Squir walked down a solid marble stair case leading into a big room, split into 3 sections, lounge, kitchen and dining room, and all of these whe were extremely posh.

And so Doris Dormouse decided to stay in her home, as the Landlord was VERY friendly.

P.S. Squirt stayed with Doris for a LONG time. He DID remember how to climb trees but had decided to stay with Doris because she was so nice(!)

The End