Moving home? It’s a piece of cake. Honestly…

Moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do, people tell me, up there with breaking one of your kids’ friends at a trampoline party – someone whose parents may not laugh it off when they collect them. Or breaking down on Bodmin Moor with the small children you’ve spent the whole journey entertaining/ winding up about the Beast. No, they can’t stay in the car while you change the burst tyre on a bend, they must wait in the field, in the dark, where it’s safe, there is no Beast, stupid child...

No, so far it’s been a breeze. There was a busy bit of redecorating, selling and packing, but I’ve blanked that. As for moving, there’s a knack: put everything in storage and move into rented, furnished accommodation.

Then all the big bits – piano, sofabed, beds, bookcases, mahogany sideboard my 30-years deceased parents were temporarily looking after for my aunty – she still doesn’t have the right space for it – are taken away by strong people and hidden. You have to pay them a lot but you can blank that too. Then all you need isamanwithavan–ormewithac3, offspring you’ve grown to the right size to lift heavy stuff, a cat carrier, cat whisperer (Youngest Child) and a cat.

True I’ve lost things in the move – bathroom scales, a gift never used but given their longevity compared to my relationship with the giver, a quality buy. Thoughtful. And a trainer.

But the stuff I found! Power balls – a brilliant half hour stotting them in empty rooms – and Youngest Child’s papier mache model of her own head, made at nursery. “Aaaaagh, just throw it out!” she bellowed, “and don’t say you have then put it in my cupboard again!” It’s stashed, ready to go in her new cupboard.

Then the cat vanished. After three weeks under a bed in his new home he went out. For nine hours. Finally I stopped blanking and admitted moving is one of the most stressful things you can do (sob). Which is when Biggie Smalls hip-hopped over the doorstep and made it home. n