Everyone knows how tiring and stressful moving home can be. I just want to add the weight of my voice to that. Oh, it is SO tiring and SO stressful. Even the most simple thing like getting electricty connected to the house for the day we move seems a trial. Our address does not exist. We are quite happy to stay with the company who currently supply us with electricity but they want to connect us to a house called Castle View when we will be Castle House. I don’t imagine the owners of Castle View would be too happy to wake up and find we have changed their electricity supplier. How can we get round this? We need either the number our house occupies in the road or the serial number of the electricity meter. Once again, our vendors are proving tricky to get hold of.

In the week we are due to exchange contracts, they go to ground and don’t respond to texts or emails. As they live in Saudi, telephone contact is not really going to happen. They give information about replacement windows which is, well, not correct shall we say, and this means they will have to provide an indemnity policy should the local authority decide to penalise us over this. They are not only uncontactable but seem to have forgotten to instruct their solicitors to exchange contracts once everything is ready. Cue rush of blood pressure and our buyers in tears. We suggest the buyers might like to come over at the weekend to ‘measure up’ so we can reassure them that we really are planning to move. They are distraught, their solicitors having told them that exchange will happen “tomorrow” for several days. We share complaints and they leave feeling reassured.

On Monday, at the point where we have decided WE will pay for the indemnity policy, our vendors resurface and with just 6 minutes to go before the end of the working day, we have exchanged contracts. A bottle of champagne is put into the fridge by Mr Mason and I delay taking pain medication as long as I can so I can enjoy a sip. I bite the bullet and arrange for Sky to supply us with tv, internet and phone, despite my better judgement. The following day we cancel our service with Virgin Media only to be told we will have to pay a disconnection charge of over £200. We have been with Virgin for many years and this seems wrong, especially as the ‘disconnection’ does not involve anyone physically doing anything like coming to the house. I speak to the Customer Services man who says if he could waive it he would but he can’t. He urges me to complain by writing a letter but I would rather use social media so I tweet and Facebook outlining my complaint. Within minutes I have a response and by the end of the day they have withdrawn the disconnection charge and apologised profusely.

It’s at this point that the fibromyalgia really seems to flare up, leaving me in more and more pain, making it difficult to get comfortable and leaving me very, very tired. It is difficult to stay awake past 8pm and I certainly don’t want to get up before 10am. My day is shrinking dramatically with so much to do. Nearly every plan I have to meet with friends before we go is postponed or cancelled. I really am finding it hard and, with such a short day, I still need a nap in the afternoon. My friend, Ms Marsden, often refers to me as Mrs Dormouse and I really think the dormouse is making a comeback. We are still sorting through the last few areas which haven’t been looked it. It’s hard to know what to do before the removal men come and what to leave for them to do. The moving and all its attendant needs are happening alongside the usual medical and hospital appointments. This week it is oncology, a CT scan (to check whether the current treatment is working – slightly scary) and chemotherapy.

The removal men start packing on Friday morning, the same day as chemo, and will then continue on Wednesday and Thursday next week, delivering half our posessions on Thursday and the final load on Friday. Yes, it’s Friday 13th. Why – do you want to make something of it?