New Day, New Life

The day for which I’ve longed and planned for so many years has finally arrived.  This morning I woke up in our new flat in Edinburgh.

The last few weeks (months?) have been some of the hardest of my life as we slowly shut down our life in Bristol – putting our house on the market, having prospective buyers pass judgement on it, setting ourselves a target of one week to find a flat to rent in Edinburgh, disposing of all the stuff we didn’t want to take with us in a sustainable way, sorting and packing the rest, cleaning, notifying key organisations of our move – but, above all, saying goodbye to the city we have come to know and love, to our younger daughter, and to the wide circle of friends we have made over the past 28 years.

We put a lot of time and effort into planning this move, but we could not have done it without the help of these friends – the ones who transported our rubbish to the recycling centre, the ones who gave our garden and art materials a second lease of life, the one who lent us a travel kettle for our last night and provided food for the train, the ones who took time to drop in to our At Home last Saturday, the ones who gave us thoughtful gifts (with special thanks for those that were handmade), the ones who patiently listened to our outpourings of anxiety, and the ones who have spoken of the value of our friendship.  I thank all of you.

I’m a lover of fresh starts and this move provides the ideal opportunity to introduce a few positive changes to my life.  It’s a work in progress but they include a variety of things from adopting a more plant-based diet, to finishing my tea before it grows cold, to starting a new blog – inspired by an old friend and fellow blogger, as a means of combining my new life with staying in touch with friends from the old one.