Pre-holiday purging…

It’s odd planning to be away for three weeks over the Christmas and New Year holidays: it’ll be the longest I’ve spent away from base since I moved back to England from America nearly three years ago.

Long-term readers will recall that in 2009 and 2010 I didn’t have a home, and moved about continuously in America, with side bar trips back to England for illness, weddings and funerals. I think that’s why I’ve resisted an extended trip for so long – until you have no base it’s hard to appreciate the joys of just staying put.

And then, of course, there is work. August, the month that fashion people traditionally take as holiday is one of my busiest periods, as companies focussing on commercial digital campaigns don’t seem to like to plan too far in advance for the AW season, and, since my parents divorced in 2011, I’ve not wanted to spend Christmas away from my mama.

But I need a proper break, and I finally feel fiscally stable enough to take three weeks without worrying that missing a work opportunity will have a negative impact on my business.

So Thailand and Hong Kong it is. I’ve been to Thailand several times, but Hong Kong is all new – and adds another territory to this year’s excellent achievement of four new countries visited already (South Korea, China, Ethiopia and the Philippines).

I’m also focussing on having all my ducks in a row before I leave – I cannot bear the thought of leaving a mess or things undone whilst I am away. My old university friend Liz will also be house sitting for me, and I want everything to be just so for her. (Perfect timing – the narrow boat she lives in on the Regent’s Canal will be going into dry dock for repairs over the holidays, and I don’t like leaving my home empty.)

So, with Remy’s sterling help, I’ve been cleaning out the kitchen cupboards, re-organising bookshelves, emptying endless boxes of random pieces of paper, chucking out piles of STUFF, heaving bin bags out to the kerb, packaging up boxes of festive gifts for refuges and donations for the Sue Ryder charity shop on my street, giving lookbooks to students, sorting clothes for Vestiaire Collective and for eBay, tidying my office desk, dry cleaning clothes, re-heeling shoes, tidying all my drawers and closets, tossing laddered tights and dried out mascaras, labelling endless new Muju acrylic boxes for all my cosmetics, and purging the bathroom of half-used bottles of shampoo and whatnot.

The window cleaner came yesterday and cleaned every window in the place – inside and out. I’ve run cleaning cycles on the washing machine and dishwasher, and de-scaled the kettle. I’ve had the car valeted, replaced the leaking roof, and dealt with the bashed in wing (thank you honest neighbour who actually confessed to her parking misdemeanour).

I’ve checked in with my bookkeeper, paid my taxes and the accountant, bought all of my Christmas presents – and wrapped them, and by tomorrow will have written all my thank you letters.

I’ve backed up all the external hard drives for my computers, upgraded to Yosemite on my laptop, got the cracked screen on my iPhone replaced, serviced my DSLR, finally ordered a new Kindle – to replace the one I knelt on in, um 2011. I’m booked in for a dental filling next week, and I just need a rabies booster and I am all set.

So WHY does my apartment still look like the messy bomb has hit it? Basically I am an appalling mixture of insanely messy and anally organised. I’m apparently incapable of putting things back in their rightful place – but everything *does* have a place.

I’m hoping that by day’s end tomorrow everything will be in its place, and all will be serene again. The conservatory that acts as my photographic studio will finally be cleared of product waiting to be shot, the tree will go up, and the enormous pile of wrapped presents will migrate to underneath its branches from their current home all over my office floor.

The huge box of shoes, also in my office, will go into storage, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get around to hanging up all the coats and clothes on my floor-drobe, in the hallway, the office, the back of the kitchen door, the conservatory…(I have just one small wardrobe, which is always full to bursting. Consequently my clothes spend less time in there, and more everywhere else.)

oh and my cleaner is coming…