Boxes, Bags, And Beams

29.8.14
This morning, beginning with my bedroom, I began the task of reclaiming my rooms. I filled eleven black refuse bags with shoes and clothes from my room, labelled them, and transported them to the hallway, along with the television and its various attachments.
Karen Vick, from Leggett estate Agency, came to view the property and set in motion the process for its sale. She had been recommended by Garry and Brigitte, and is a local councillor.
The two large walk-in cupboards in the attic have been filled with the occupiers’ property. Right at the back I found some of my own belongings from the sitting room, including ornaments that had belonged to my grandparents. They had been thrown higgledy piggledy into a broken cardboard box. Stuffed into a stiff paper carrier bag that was dirty inside, were my two raincoats. My books, at least, had been stacked neatly on a set of shelves. A broken bedside table had been dumped into one of the cupboards. Miraculously, my grandparents’ rather fragile tourist purchases from one of their trips to St Malo were undamaged. The same could not be said for a much more robust lidded pot that stood on my bedroom mantelpiece. That, a present I had given my parents many years ago, had been smashed and tossed into a waste bin.
It is actually nowadays a physically painful operation for me to crawl about in a packed attic, attempting to avoid boxes, bags, and beams. I have a few scars from the heavy timbers which I sometimes nutted.
I can’t now remember where I found my underclothes and socks. Possibly with my shirts in a wardrobe in another room.
My toiletries, including electric toothbrush, razor, hairdryer, comb, etc., etc. are all missing.
I have written before about the summer Friday evening meals in the square. Today I dined there on succulent grilled duck and chips followed by, back at the house, cake Michael had bought yesterday. I met Nicole and Joel, who ran La Renaissance, the previous incarnation of Le Code Bar. This event was now their business.
Later, on full volume, in an only partially successful attempt to mask the music from the square, I watched Prime Suspects ‘The Lost Child’ and ‘Inner Circles’. Both superb productions, the first was particularly poignant as Superintendent Jane Tennison investigated the suspected abduction and murder of a small child, immediately after she had herself undergone an abortion.