Clearing the house

Dig gets off to the airport today in good time. Not like the day he was flying to Thailand but muddled up the timings and discovered at 4pm that his flight was taking off at 8pm and not 11pm as he'd thought. Cue panic. The check-in time was 6pm and security took three hours. We bundled the kids in the car within 10 minutes, which was an achievement in itself because normally that alone takes an hour. No-one was wearing shoes, knickers, or had coats, but I reasoned that if the car broke down the RAC would have us as priority thanks to the screams that would be happening in the background. We got stuck on the M25. The kids call it slow hour and fill in the time by punching each other and crying. I call it misery. I thought Dig was going to have a heart attack that day. I really thought the end had come. I reckoned that if he survived I should get the information out of him about how to charge up the car's battery, because it's always going flat, and Dig's always charging it up. I don't know which way the wires go on and I don't want to call the RAC out for that in case they put up my premiums. Anyway, he did get the flight, I'm not sure how. He's been doing a lot of international gigs this last year and he's in the posh class with BA, so they frisked his shoes in a special queue for fast people and he just made it all, this time without his name being called over the tannoy.

While Dig does the international work, I do the domestic. I've been freecycling again. Today I'm aiming to get rid of the sofa, three armchairs, four dining chairs, a single bed, a chest of drawers, three teletubby backpacks, boxes of books, a pile of Postman Pat jigsaws with his face scribbled out (that was me), a standard lamp, a bookcase, a computer desk and the fridge. I'll also add Uncle Eff's wardrobe, so if his clothes are still in it, tough luck.

This is all in preparation for the great Northumberland house clearance. None of the furniture's mine, so I can dispose of it all free from the nostalgic poetry of fond rememberances of knarled hands on wooden veneers. And I'm doing it all remotely too, so I can't describe the stains, the bits sliced off, the chunks chipped out, or the unfortunate accidents that have resulted in the loss of a leg. I get lots of takers, and am highly pleased. I'm starting to look forward to going up there.

I have no idea what the kids are getting up these days. Since we got back they seem to be sleeping a lot and playing a lot and fighting a lot, so I suppose they're normal. I'll get back to the home education when things calm down a bit. We'll do a project on Edward I. I'm already worrying about the demise of Edward II, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.