Well, tomorrow I leave this lovely house and all the good people. I went for a last swim in the College pool this morning, cycling along Kingsgate Street as I have done for the last fifty five years. I reckon I might have swum to America and back in all those lengths (well France anyway)  I have been hugged and kissed by the most unlikely people, who have all assured me that will very soon turn up in Ditchling. That will be nice as long as they don`t all come at once.  The leaving parties were embarrassingly well attended in spite of my fears, and the sun shone on a garden filled with tulips and bluebells.
The car is filled to the gunnells with objects gathered up  around the house: wellingon boots, music I will never play, Quaker marmalade, ancient rusty baking tins, and also a large acer tree given as a present which will tickle the back of my neck all the way to Ditchling. I must not forget to pack Daphne the cat who is wandering around the house well aware that Somehing Is Up.  The bike and cello have been farmed out for others to take.  I will change the name of this blog when I get there as alas I have no Aga, it should come up as Ditchling Daze but I am not sure where.  Dear J tried to organise it for me. I may have to get the grand daughters on to it in Brighton.
I wonder how I will feel when I set off early tomorrow?

From the 1st May I can be found at Ditchling Daze.

the last ditch before Ditchling

Life is busy. If in doubt, throw it out is my motto. I did a car boot with J on Sunday and objects from my childhood home in Palmers Green were cheerfully sold for fifty pence. Last week I moved my possessions to the teeny tiny cottage. it was chaotic but with the help of grand daughters G and M we unpacked all the boxes and made up the beds which looked bouncy and inviting. A kind bloke came and assembled the Ikea flatpacks so there were bookshelves to stow away all the hundreds of books that I could not bear to give to Oxfam, yet. I cooked my first big saucepan of soup for my kind family who came to do the broadband, tune in the telly and arrange the books in alphabetical order would you believe.
I am now back in the Meeting House for my last two weeks until I finally move on May 1st with my cat, my bike and my cello. Everyone is being nice to me and it makes me feel tearful. I tried out my farewell speech on M last night and got a lump in my throat. I am still worried that no one will turn up at my leaving party.

too much stuff

Everyone who comes to the house is ordered to take something, anything away, coal scuttles, my mother`s dinner plates, brass candlesticks, teapots,woolly hats,maps of the Lake District, fish knives and forks, but even so the number of filled boxes piling up in the garage, on the landings and in my flat seems enormous when I consider my tiny living space in Ditchling.
Tomorrow, J, an ex resident whose dad lives up North is taking some superfluous furniture to grand daughter F for me , so I thought I would buy an outfit for great grandson little Arthur, to go with it. What a shock to see what baby boys of four months old are supposed to wear: combat trousers in thick denim, orange striped rugby shirts. It all looked rough and tickly.
Normal life is in suspension at present, and I have not celebrated Easter properly at all. This time last year I was up in Northumberland cycling round Cragside on a family holiday in spring sunshine, but here I am ,up and down the stairs with bags of coat hangers and bubble wrap feeling anxious about the imminent moving day.

more last things

Today some of the morning swimmers took me out for a farewell coffee at the cathedral refectory. Of course it was not my last swim, but several of the others were off for the Easter Hols. It was nice to meet with all our clothes on for a change.
I did gardening with K later, in a bitterly cold wind. Everything is very late, and lots of loved plants died in the winter snows. Odd to think I will not be here to see the dahlias that K planted.
Some of the Alcoholics Anonymouses are very kindly carrying some furniture downstairs as I write this with much groaning on the bends in the stairs and landings. Another friend is driving these things up to Newcastle to granddaughter F. What a pallaver it all is.
Next Wednesday is the Moving Day though I will not leave my job here till May 1st, but my flat must be painted for the new incumbent. I spend many waking hours in the middle of the night, thinking `if I put that bookcase there and that table there, where will I fit in the sofa?` and so it goes on.

The end is nigh!

I am doing things `for the last time`now. Today was the last House Management Meeting and I look back over sixteen years of reporting the leaks in showers, kitchens, blocked up pipes, recalcitrant residents, minor and major disasters of every description. In the meantime I am trying to pack up books, and the idea was to take half of them at least to the Oxfam bookshop, but I find it is so hard to get rid of them, especially the poetry books. My dear friend I is going to take an entire cupboard full of music, which has been sitting on the landing being a Fire Risk for years.
My friend M is busily painting the Ditchling cottage. We decided to remove all the fake old beams in the sitting room and now there are great gaping holes and an urgent need for a plasterer. I suppose that the last owner was the one who stuck them on,. Still it all makes work for the working man to do. I am spending a fortune buying things like a broom and a dustpan, a rubbish bin and a Hoover. It is like setting up home for the first time as all my stuff has been absorbed into the Meeting House. I have warned the residents that I will be taking the Scrabble, the dictionary, and the electric hand mixer. They will also miss my Guardian and the quick crossword every day.

I have just disovered that beds from Ikea are six inches longer than English ones, Swedes are taller I suppose. So the super comfortable new bed I bought a few months ago and have been luxuriating in ever since, will not fit into my teeny tiny bedroom at Ditchling. One more worry. I am dementedly making lists and measuring things, also trying to give my possessions away. Every time I go to Ditchling, the house looks smaller.
It is a bit like death, this moving business, speculating as to whether there is an After Life and what form it will take. J gave me a notebook for Mothering Sunday with a list of things I can do if I wake up in the morning, it is raining and I have nothing planned, (this never happens in the Meeting House) Ideas range from writing a novel, making half a dozen quiches for some unnamed recipient, or simply lying on the sofa and reading a book.

kippers and quiche

Another long gap, and after two more lots of penicillin for the ghastly elephantine leg, I then got a face like the elephant man too. I suddenly developed an allergy to penicillin and woke up on Thursday morning with a great swollen face and red weals, it was most alarming. Daughter J took charge and got me seen at the Brighton hospital by a very kind helpful doctor, who said no more penicillin ever and then the leg miraculously recovered. I think my body is saying to me, no, you can`t move to Ditchling, you have to stay here and work at the Meeting House for ever.
Yesterday we had the great Fabulous Fairtrade breakfast. A dozen of us scuttled round the kitchen, serving and cooking the Full English and also strange combinations such as kippers with a poached egg on top or kedgeree with scrambled eggs plus one slice of white bread and butter. Oh so capricious the punters were. Still it made about £750 for Emmaus and generated a lot of goodwill.
It is a beautiful Spring morning, the garden is full of snowdrops, crocuses and the daphne is flowering. Lots of Quakes are staying for lunch after Meeting, but it is is laid up ready, (quiches of course!) and it is time for me to put the jacket potatoes in the Aga.