Life, don't talk to me about life...

Actually I'm not as miserable as Marvin (paranoid android, brain size of a planet etc.) but I am exhausted. So far today, I've dragged myself out of bed (briefly horrified by the bags under my eyes), shouted at children who were squabbling over knickers, and headed off in the rain to Cwmbran and a self-storage facility.

We are now the proud renters of a container and will be attempting to fit our belongings into it in the next couple of weeks. Self-storage sites aren't particularly interesting or cheerful and nor was the girl at the reception desk. I'm not sure what I was expecting. You can't see anything, just row after row of dull looking container. But they are lined and raised off the ground and it looks all right. Frankly, I am getting to the stage where I'm past caring.

Meanwhile, we were surprised at how much the garage has offered for our car. Not a huge amount but much more than I thought it would be worth. My advice to those looking to retain value in their car is not to drive it. I think our low mileage helped a lot. Of course that does rather defeat the purpose of having the car but still.

And we're mid panic because we have prospective tenants coming to visit the house on Friday. The place is all disorder and underneath the disorder, dust and dirt. I am trying to be philosophical and my lovely landlords have said not to get in a tizz about it, but I can't really help it. It is rather kick-starting me into action to rid the house of huge quantities of clutter. Yesterday, I chucked about 8 bags of unwanted clothing into the clothes bank at the car park, as well as offloading loads of mixing bowls, a filing cabinet, some vases and some baskets to a friend. I have two forms of freecycle going at the moment - a private group of friends, now known as the gannets in this house (don't take offence if you're reading this! it is meant affectionately) and the real freecycle who are getting anything the gannets haven't had first.

We have also sold a load of books to the local second-hand bookshop and are hoping to get some other furniture taken away very soon. By the time we're ready to leave, we'll be taking it in turns to sit on one chair in the middle of an empty house, eating chinese takeaway!