With all the stuff taken off the walls, my room is echoing unnaturally. There are boxes and boxes and so many boxes in the living room. The fridge is empty and the cupboard is bare.

In every move there is a point where the house no longer feels like your place even though you’re still in it. This period always makes me feel smaller, somehow, like I’m camping in a remote and lonely outpost devoid of the comforts of home.

The feeling is exacerbated this time because there is quite a wide gap between when I will be moving out of this house and when I will move into the next one. For three full weeks I shall be a wandering nomad.

I’d love for this to be a limitless, borderless adventure: pack a bag, throw out the map and go wherever the wind may take us! But alas, I still have to work. If my office were as convenient to move as a helium balloon I could bounce hither and yon, whirling around like a dervish until coming to rest in the new flat. But the world is failing to bend itself to my will on this particular point.

So, as it is, I’m sitting in my remote and lonely outpost peering into the darkness beyond and wondering what lies ahead before I reach my dwelling place.