I'm in the final stages of moving from one flat when at school to another. My family had been occupying the old one for over ten years, it turns out; my sisters before me. We kept finding Things. Little sentimental mementoes and practical things completely forgotten about because they were part of the landscape. A little ceramics whale I made years ago in art class. Four extension cords; I nearly forgot one. The dust pan and brush, and the bin. Father's tools. He even had a pair of jeans left behind in the wardrobe. The curtains in the kitchen window were about five shades of grey darker at the bottom than they were on top.
We have to move out because the house is a little over a hundred years old and apparently the electrical wiring in the flat hasn't been changed since it was first put in, or something. And there's a persistent gas leak. And the bath is in the kitchen, which was fun while we were there, kind of, except that there was no door, just a curtain, so, you know, the new tennants will no doubt want a more modern approach to in-house hygiene.
The old little green sink in the toilet that I'm so fond of and refused to have replaced got a stamp of approval from a member of the reviewing committee (there was my aunt, whose house it is, the young lady who helps oversee the house for her, and the man in charge of the upcoming renovation). It made me a little warm inside. Hopefully the new tennants will like it, too.
The new flat is somewhat smaller, which means now there's stuff
everywhere, before I figure out where it all goes. And I kind of hate the bed; I slept on the floor in the old flat, because it turns out I like my sleeping surfaces
really hard. So for now, I sleep on the floor again, which of course doesn't help the situation with stuff everywhere. And there are zero nails in the walls and we're not allowed to put in new ones, which is rubbish, especially because I have several pictures
and a mirror.
BUT
There's a river at one side, and forested hills on the other side, and gardens everywhere, including right in front of the balcony that my room opens into. (The neighbours have chicken even, which is so much right, and I've heard a woodpecker and seen a jay.) And even though there's a fairly frequented road right in front of the house, it's still a considerable step up from the old place where there's one of the busiest streets, right next to a busy crossroads, and trams going underneath your window every ten minutes or so; and if your forgot your laptop open overnight, it would be covered in dust in the morning.
Also, internet. Right now, I'm sitting in the old flat with the mobile connection, which has been rendered mostly obsolete with the move.
So it's mostly a win.
All the moving and all the school stuff, though, means there hasn't been much fanfiction writing in the past months. I can't move on with
The Peridan Chronicles, even though I want to. I'm stuck on a chapter that needs primarily stylistics, and an ethical/spiritual debate, and such like, which requires more thinking than I have mental capacity for for the time being. I figured out the stuff with the Polynesian heritage for Telmarines I mentioned before (
it makes so much sense for this character I had had a vague idea for), and that's about it when it comes to inspiration for it.
There hasn't even been any sewing (aside from darning a sock recently), which tends to be my go-to activity when I'm intellectually depleted.
In other news, though, I wrote two limericks in the creative writing course, one as my regular assignment and one instead of a critique because the critique was to point out the rhyming scheme; so I feel rather accomplished in that regard. Me and poetry don't normally get on.
So I'm sitting in the old flat, writing a post to make sense of it. To put a thick line behind it. Something along those lines. I'll miss the green sink, but the green chairs went with me. On the bus. In three consecutive journeys over the weekend. My sister joked that the drivers on the line would come to believe there was a green-chair-wielding ghost haunting them.
This should not fit, but the mood does.