Done

I still have a daunting amount of cleaning and tidying and final checking of things to be done, but... the substantive packing is now completed.   Oh my god, I was beginning to think it would never end.  I have worked on it from dawn till dusk for the last four days with scarcely a break.    I began the effort with a fairly full day last Monday, and was initially thinking that I could get on top of things by doing an hour or two each evening.  Foolish fancy!  No I was just too darn busy last week, and lost momentum on that plan almost immediately.   However, I was looking at work-free days on Friday and Monday, and I thought four full days would be enough.  Ahem.  Well, that got off to a terrible start as well: I allowed myself to be led badly astray on Thursday night: so badly that I slept in until mid-afternoon on Friday (and then, after noodling around indolently on the Internet for a couple of hours, felt the need to go out again for a 'hair of the dog').   How I have been rueing that lost day ever since.   Over the past few days, I've found my anxiety has functioned as a natural alarm clock, rousing me well before dawn each day.  I haven't always responded well to these promptings from my body - but I should have.  It's uncanny how my subsconscious knows how long a task like this will take me.... to a fairly precise number of hours.  And if I kept on taking time off in the evenings, three days wasn't going to be enough.   I'd made pretty good progress on Saturday and Sunday, but when I set to again on Monday morning, I had a nagging dread that I wasn't quite going to be able to get it all done in one more day.  So, I postponed my scheduled moving time from Wednesday morning to Thursday afternoon.  And then - as luck would have it - my regular Tuesday afternoon work appointment was cancelled at 24 hours' notice, and I found myself yesterday afternoon (after heroic efforts in the morning!) starting to think that the end was finally, sort of in sight..... and I now had two more full days to work on the problem.... rather than just Tuesday evening.  What a relief that was.  Of course, I went out and got drunk again to celebrate.   However, it became a matter of pride for me to try and get things finished in time for my originally projected moving time tomorrow.  I had another very early start today.  And I had sworn not to blog until the packing was done.   Now, after a shorter than expected stint of work this morning and the suddenly work-free afternoon, I have reached my goal (with only one minuscule blogging lapse): the packing is done.     I don't think I am ever going to move again.   Or, if I do, I am only going to take one case with me.