We have a date

February 28, 2026

Operation Brighten Room is progressing nicely.

Okay, let’s be honest, there really is still quite a lot (including and especially the ceiling) to do.

The priority for now was getting the wall where the bookcases are going to be painted. (’Cos, ya know, the bookcases are heavy enough without all the books.) Still, you can already see how much brighter the room is going to be.

The paint is a funny old colour. It’s grey (I can hear my friend Krys saying, “You really are turning this into your house, aren’t you?”) with the tiniest hint of mauve for a bit of warmth. Except, depending on where you are standing in the room and how it’s lit, one end looks definitively mauve and the other looks very grey indeed. Odd.

So, here we are at the end of February. You may remember I said on the first day of the month that I was going to try to write something – no matter how boring – each and every one of February’s 28 days. I have now succeeded. Easier than I thought what with all the ready-made-for-rant material these days. Interspersed with a few domestic posts.

This is one of the latter. I don’t know how much writing I am going to get done in the coming days/weeks, because I am going to be spending a lot of time at my house packing it up.

When we first started talking about living together when we were in France last April, we optimistically thought the beginning of September. That didn’t pan out. Then there was the trip to England for my cousin Lauren’s funeral, then there was Covid finally catching up with me, then there was the play.

And then, at the end of November Maisie and I moved in. It was an experiment. I wasn’t prepared to fully commit to co-habitation until I was absolutely certain his dog would not attack my cat. I’ve been convinced of that for a while now. And I do pop back to the house to sort out this and that and bring a few bits and bobs back here.

However, the megapack has not happened and the truck rental date never seemed to get nailed down. So, the other day I said, “March 31st. Let’s aim for renting that truck on March 31st.” And he said, “Sure, okay. Why then?” And I said, “Because March 31st last year was the day we left for France and our adventure together really began.”