IN THEORY

I think it’s rained every day this year. It certainly did this morning. It hammered on the conservatory roof and dribbled miserably down the black windows. Still dark, still unconscionably wet. I was up early.

It’s been a really difficult season, this. My friends on the early morning prayer meeting agreed, but I also got the impression that some of them were ever-so-slightly bored by yet another week of me having nothing else in the world to pray about.

A colleague too, told me he empathised - he’d had to live four months in a three-bed house with seven kids and a dog. We’ve hardly had that level of chaos. Although I have had to fish matching socks out of a suitcase most mornings.

Nevertheless, our Unsettling Adventure is really close to ending now. In theory, we exchange tomorrow and move next Wednesday.

I add ‘in theory’ because this process doesn’t really let you believe anything is certain. And almost 20 weeks of uncertainty makes you a bit more cautious.

I’d really like to write about the toll all of this taken on us. To be honest, I would quite like to turn the key in the lock, walk inside, breathe one deep gulp of air, and then collapse on the floor for a whole month. I can’t speak for Sammy - though I reckon she’d want to take more of a look round first so she’d have to climb over my slumbering bulk before she could relax.

It will take a while to process, and a while to recover, but it will be so nice to have space of our own, and I do know that everyone (not just those on the prayer meeting) has been rooting for that on our behalf.