I Live Here

It was a strange moment. I mean, I know I live here. I brought all my stuff with me. This is my computer I'm writing on, for instance, with my files on it.

But we often take holidays in cottages which are other people's houses. And although this has not been a holiday it has been two and a half weeks away from what I used to call home. A few times in the last two and a half weeks I have referred to Leamington as home and have been, rightly, picked up for it.

We have used the opportunity to buy some new furniture, I have a new monitor for my computer and we have new telephones. So some of the day-to-day ephemera of life has (or is it have? Help) changed. Which means that although I brought all my bits and pieces here it could still have been a holiday, albeit more like a working holiday than a doss.

But last night, just before Liz got home from work, as I gathered washing from the garden, tidied the kitchen and did some ironing listening to the radio, I suddenly realised I lived here. This is home. This is the new normal.

Then we had a power cut, the fifth since we got here and four of them have been whilst ironing so I had a new normal problem to deal with, including resetting the cooker off which all the dial markings have been cleaned, the microwave and, although I couldn't get round to it until today, working out why my new (another new) stereo system wipes all the DAB settings whenever there is a two second power cut.

I think I'll check the wiring in the iron first.