I had a dream last night that we had moved into a house while waiting for our new one to be built. It was bang in the middle of a bustling city; while technically a Townhouse, it was in a building with several other houses and you accessed it from inside the building (although I went on several forays via the windows). The building was next to a bank. Our own house’s rear window was just opposite a fancy traditional sweet shop. One of the side windows was opposite a shop that specialised in hijiki (a type of seaweed). There was room for more than one of us to shower at once. There was a bath and a cloakroom and firm beds with crisp clean linen. Basically it spoke to so many of my desires at once.

At around 2am, the slats under my side of our bed detached and (because I had absolutely no energy for fixing that in my 2am state) I spent the rest of my night sleeping in a sinkhole. There’s a smell in the bedroom that I can neither identify nor eliminate – my horrible suspicion is that a mouse has died behind the 100-year old wainscotting beside the semi-blocked up fireplace (there’s a fireplace in every room in the house, but no, not beautiful or character-adding. Just a vehicle to let in damp and cold). The dogs constantly moult and we are not keeping up to speed with hoovering. The destructive children have bounced the springs out of the couch and spilled milk in unknown locations. There’s a constantly sticky spot under the couch, no matter how many times I clean there. The fridge smells bad.

We have no bath and there’s a leak that means that our cold water can barely last for 2 of us to have a shower in succession.

Some of these problems and inherent to the house, but a lot of them are down to us and how we’re living in the space that we have. But I think that some of it is a bit along the lines of the Broken Window Theory. Because it feels like no matter what we do or how much energy we expend, the house will still carry its fundamental flaws of damp and bad smells, and being too small, and not having enough water … then it starts to feel like “what’s the point?”. I know that since we made the decision last March that yes, we would go ahead with moving out of here and building a new house, I’ve a little abandoned my war on mess and devastation and destruction in this house.

What I want to do now is transform our bedroom into a packing-staging-area and start to pack up any stuff that we’re not using right now. The bed-collapse last night definitely pushed me one step further towards saying “now” with pulling that trigger. The couch in the sitting room folds out into a bed that is actually way more comfortable than the one we’re currently sleeping in.

But would it remain so for 6-8 more months? Also, once we make that switch we won’t be able to have people over to stay any more. We’ve a friend staying this coming Friday in fact. So I guess we’ll have to struggle that heavy mattress up and fix the slats for another go-round. They’re not actually broken, it’s possible to fix them, but I’m just feeling so very “over” it.

I kind of want to throw it all away. I’m attached to the notion of starting over with a completely clean slate. But it’s not that simple. Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you. Everywhere I go, I have to bring myself with me. And all our clutter. And all our cluttered and hoarding inclinations.

Actually, I’m not so bad for hoarding as I used to be. Moving country a couple of times will make a difference there. Interestingly I’m often attached to things on my husband’s behalf. There are ancient books and ornaments and things in this house of five generations, and I feel attached to them on his behalf – and, I guess on behalf of my children who’s legacy it also is.

I’m so ready for this new move though. I don’t want to wait 6 – 8 months to move out, but in truth it will take that long to get all our shit together and be ready to move out. I’m also scared it’s all going to fall through and not happen at all. A little like the slats on my bed 😦