Adèle and I are now sitting in an all but empty house and most of our stuff is on the back of a truck. We have a bed, a kitchen table to sit at and a couple of armchairs in the lounge. I'm wondering how it would be if, instead, the material substratum of our lives was still in the house and the two of us were in the back of the truck. Thus does a new venture like this shake all one's settled assumptions and pitch one down the path of adventurous thinking. Yet, strange to relate, despite the emptiness of the house and its echoing echoeyness, I still feel very much at home here. This is not a mere shell; it remains the place of 27 years of life events. Who needs a fridge or a television set when there are the memories? Who needs a ladder, a wastepaper basket, a full-length mirror, green tea, when we've got each other? Who needs a networked computer since the dongle - cringe - came along?
For the second time in my life I am amazed at the strength, the skills and the energies that enable three guys to pack and empty the contents of a large house in just a few hours.
