Helena Handbasket

By Tivoli

The move is complete. All my stuff has been brought down one flight of stairs. Everything that had to be disassembled has been reassembled. Mostly I'm unpacked, but not entirely. I've had three trips into town buying shoe-racks that I have deliberately assembled incorrectly so that my beloved house-plants can enjoy the vast front window.
Do you remember when my elderly solitary basil plant died and a self-sown capsicum emerged in its place and then Arachne donated a squash to keep it company. Well look at it all now! And I have a top-secret project going on on my bedroom windowsill too.
What I am showing you is the safe version. At some point in the next week my landlord will return to change the curtains, so I am leaving a low-rise display of plant shelving that shouldn't worry him. But as soon as he's done what he feels he must I'm going to raise these plant shelves by a level and rearrange his curtains. As long as I put it all back the way it was, that's fine.
With the exception of the vast Goldilocks armchair and the beautiful chest, I've done the whole move myself. For those two items I borrowed my delightfully fit neighbour, about whom I had no knowledge until I heard him turn the key in his own door. He's a lovely surprise!
And the whole move has been punctuated by a seemingly everlasting text-fest with my 16-year-old nan-daughter (shorthand for step-grand-daughter). I've been in her company only thrice - in 2017, 2015 and 2012, so I'm overjoyed that she is engaging with me in a conversation about menstrual pain-relief medication and what works and what doesn't. I love the fact that we can be so frank with each other despite a link that most people would regard as too flimsy to acknowledge.
And, having removed all my stuff from the attic flat, I have also been back up there to clean everything. 
I'll go back up there at some point next week to check for failures, but I think that oven, toilet and bath are all twinkling, and the rest is dust-free.

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