There are good reasons I removed all identifying names and places from this blog

I'm sitting in a half-empty room, boxes and bags accruing in the kitchen, wondering how on earth I'm ever going to move the wardrobe of six people home with me when the time comes. (No, I'm not sure how five other people mysteriously stuffed their clothes into my closet, which barely qualifies as a closet anyway, given that it is the size of a medicine cabinet. I am anything but fashion-conscious, and I often find I have nothing to wear when I need to go somewhere nicer than Sainsbury's...so, obviously, these clothes, they are capable of reproducing asexually.)

In a few days, my parents arrive for a visit. My MIL and BIL were here in July, and it was great to see them, even if I could only emerge from my pile of interviews long enough to gasp a hello and point in the direction of the tea cupboard. Hopefully, I'll be able to be a bit more social with my parents, although I am certifying my status as the world's most shameless daughter by enlisting them in our move under the guise of a visit to Oxford. Which it is. Just with boxes.

It is even worse because they are moving right now, too, although this is a vast improvement over the situation last week, in which they were moving without having found a new house. They seemed cheerily okay with this, as if it is perfectly normal in one's middle age to pack up all of one's belongings and leave for a foreign country without the slightest clue where one will sleep upon one's return. Well, technically, they did have some sort of month-long arrangement involving an eccentric hippy lady with an apartment the size of a spare room. It is decorated in a manner I cannot imagine -- Mom described it as reminiscent of life in 1970s San Francisco, a period which I have chosen to deny my parents ever experienced. Although the fact that anyone from 1970s San Francisco remembers it is quite impressive. But yes, after a month or so with the hippy lady, they would have been consigned to wherever the city puts families who sell their homes and then disappear to Europe.

I did warn CB when we married that my family was a bit crazy.