The Inverted Weekend

Well that was weird.

All day yesterday, d and I kept telling each other how it felt like Sunday already, because we'd both been home on Friday, packing our little hearts out. Today, frankly, has felt suspiciously Saturday-ish all day long.

And when I say long, I mean long. We stumbled to our air mattress about 1AM, to catch some sleep. Set the alarm for 5AM, and woke up naturally before it went off. d was already pottering about, doing the final things that needed doing. As it turned out, that was just as well, cos the removal men, who had said they were going to be here at 6, and then had changed that to 7, turned up almost as originally planned at 6.15! By that point it wasn't exactly a case of being dressed as vicars and nuns and offering plates of small oily fish to people at random, but we were running around, doing what seemed to be an ever-expanding number of those apparently last, final-honest things. The guys were hefty Valleys blokes, with cheery dispositions and a fine line in whatever the Welsh equivalent of the Irish craic is...chrachhhhh probably, with significant amount of phlegm-expulsion as part of the pronunciation.

Anyhow, these guys turned up with a big big van, and almost equally big big muscles, and went through the flat like a small but dedicated plague of locusts - within about 45 minutes, they were done, we were down to bare carpets, and I was waving d off around the corner.

I wandered through the empty flat, looking for something to do or somewhere to sit that wasn't inflatable. Plugged in the iPod and listened to Christmas songs for a while. Yes, voluntarily. Not at all sure what that was about.

Possibly, as my pal Mae suggested, to add to or test my Grumpy Git personna. Strangely enough, it had the opposite effect - I came over all excited and Christmassy. This, clearly, couldn't be allowed to go on. I developed a plan - I would go to Oxford Street.

Oxford Street on Christmas Week, which this nearly is, is where they put all the people who are destined for Hell but can't get in yet, due to the queues. But today - calm. Quiet. Eerie. You could walk about ten abreast up most of the street, should you have that many friends with a masochistic bent. I'm guessing this is the meaning of all those panicky headlines I'm seeing about the death of the British high street, as we all either buy nothing at all but an extra lump of coal for our Christmas dinner, or buy online. Whatever we're doing, Oxford Street was nowhere near bad enough to dim my festive spirit. Came home to the empty flat. That, finally, felt weird.

There's a sensation when you give up a job and are working your notice period of being Dead Man Walking - or I guess Lame Duck Waddling, in political terms. Right now I feel like Grumpy Welshman Squatting - as though the place stopped belonging to us at about 7 o'clock this morning, and now I'm just taking the piss, letting myself in and out of someone else's house and dossing on their floor.

Of course, technically, that's always true when you rent. But it's always felt like our place - it's been where we've come "Home" to. And now it isn't. Now it's just some weirdly empty, anodyne walls, and an air mattress, and me.

(Shrug).

d got the movers sorted out at the other end of course, and, if she's got any sense, will be going to bed soon - s'been a very exhausting few weeks since we got the news that we could move Home to Wales.

In actual Disappearing terms, a pretty good day - had a couple of big de-caffs throughout the course of the day, oosome beans on toast, a packet of baked crisps and three Weetabix. Not by any means a stellar day, but compared to yesterday's pizzafest, not bad either. Have already set my alarm for the morning, for 6AM. Time to get back on the walking jag.

Well, I say time - thankfully, it's not time for another 11 and a half hours. Right now it's time to settle into the mattress with a movie and a bottle of water, I reckon. Tomorrow it's time to get back on the walking jag.

Maybe...