Nice beaten up one too, less to worry about at least. Runs fine, though hill starts are a total bitch. I wonder how often they replace the clutches in these things, given that amateurs like me are probably the usual drivers. Drive from Hitchin (where van rental is, 5 minute walk from the new place) to Ricky was uneventful, too uneventful! It took 2 hours, rather than 45 minutes! The M1 was broken, lorry collision, I took back roads but it was slow (at least it was moving though.) Lots of lorries colliding and tipping over today according to the road reports, apparently it is the rain (you’d think the damn Poms would be used to it by now!) FYI, “lorry” is Pommie for “truck.” It bucketed down overnight, a lot of water on the road, it’s been swinging between light and heavy rain most of today.

I’ve loaded half our stuff into the van now, a lot of the heaviest stuff. Though I’m holding back on a couple of items so that Kat can help me not bash holes in walls. I got the largest and heaviest thing we have (a solid oak coffee table) up here by myself, so I ought to be able to get everything down myself. Right now I’m happy I’ve been doing a lot of squats and deadlifts in the last year! (Though I’ve been slack on it for almost two months now, got to get back on track after the move.)

Getting there, slowly but surely.

I had 5 double espressos today, getting back to old Sydney habits. Probably won’t be possible in Hitchin though, might even have to go cold turkey (well, there’s always tea of course.)

Made a great risotto with that chicken stock on Monday night, vaguely planning to write up a risotto recipe – I don’t think it’ll happen though, too busy. Looks like it’ll be king prawns and pasta for dinner tonight, got a bag of frozen prawns in the freezer I should use.

Anyway, got to get back to it.