We have all had our heads buried in the sand a bit.

T - 3 weeks

The prospect of packing up the stables, the tree house, the cow byer (our old home) and the house is rather a daunting one.  I have insisted - no negotiations - on using a removal company.  Toby moved us from Dorset to Devon, six years ago, with a car and a horse trailer.  It almost killed him.  We have had a lot on.  My book being published.  Funerals.  Pregnancy.  Summer holidays.  Work.  Editing Book II of my trilogy.  My main worry is Toby doing too much and having a heart attack.  So I’m trying, hard, to pull my substantial weight.  28 weeks pregnant tomorrow though.  I can’t do much lifting. We have all had our heads buried in the sand a bit.

Toby has been organising his great uncle’s funeral in Norfolk and he’s been away a lot but he’s almost packed up the stable yard in between driving up and down the country.

I packed my first box today.  Started in Merlin’s room.  Packing with three boys at home is NOT ideal.  Jesse is great - he’s outside strimmimg.  What a hero.  Pippin however.  You couldn’t write it…

Every time we throw something away, a headless soldier, a train without tracks.  Out it comes again - magically - to reappear in the drawing room.  He’s emptied a box of Lego down the stairs.  Retrieved old teddy bears from the boot room where they had begun their final journey. He pilfered all the dogs’ bones and packed them in a box.

But we have somehow managed to pack up an entire room. Hooray!! 🙌🏻

I am struggling to get my head around leaving Woodley.  It’s been the best home.  The beauty here is something else.  The big field has been left fallow this year and it’s turned into a wild, untamed meadow filled with wildflowers.  It hums with grasshoppers and we have spotted some very rare butterflies.  The trees are fully laden, even though they’re thirsty.  The horses are a bit bored but the roses are growing again for the second or even third time.  The goldfinch are bathing outside the kitchen window and the wisteria is full and abundant around the windows providing shade.  The house is a cool haven. We have been so happy here.

I said to Toby this morning slightly woefully, ‘Won’t you miss it?' And he said that of course he would but where we are going is such an adventure.  It’s equally beautiful but in a totally different way.  Vast and solitary.  Surrounded by hills and lochs.  We will have more space.  I can finally have my sheeps.  The children will all fit in the house.  I’ll have a room of one’s own to write in. Everything I have dreamed of.

It’s such a good way to look at life.  Like a monkey in the jungle, swinging through the trees.  You have to let go of a safe branch sometimes; hurl yourself blindly through the canopy - a hundred feet above the floor - to catch onto a new, slightly terrifying but hopefully secure branch that will lead onto a new path.  It might even be better than the one you were on before.

Trust yourself.  Trust your instincts.

Have bit of fun… and try not to sob too much while preparing for the leap.  Hormones aren’t helping!