The start of the rest of my life

Because the ‘moving’ chat is finally over!

This week I’ve been loving:

• ☕  Forest Feast Chocolate & Peanut Butter Dates. I’ve been obsessed with the dark chocolate covered almonds from Forest Feast for ages, so I’m always keeping my eye out for new additions to their range. I found these dates - covered first in peanut butter and then milk chocolate - in Boots earlier this week and they’re incredible. For an even better experience, keep them in the fridge. 

• 🍿 Two new films. In line with SAG-AFTRA guidance, I’m not going to go into detail about the two new films I saw this week, except to say that I really enjoyed watching them, and they both surprised me in a good way. I’ll share more once the strike is over! 

• 📚 The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. It turns out that I should’ve listened to everyone who had raved about how great this book (the first in the Wayfarers series) is. I tried to explain what it’s about to a friend yesterday and tapped out at ‘it’s about tunnelling through space - but it’s so much more than that.’ This fits into the ‘solarpunk’ section of science fiction; I’ll copy and paste the Wikipedia definition of solarpunk below. I loved reading this book! It was immersive in a way that reading was when I was a child but I don’t get to experience very often these days - you might remember my writing about Peng Shepherd’s The Cartographers in the same way back at the start of this year. (Bookshop.org | Amazon - affiliate links) 

Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualising a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The “solar” represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the “punk” refers to the counter cultural, post-capitalist, and de colonial enthusiasm for creating such a future. 

As a science fiction literary subgenre and art movement, solarpunk works address how the future might look if humanity succeeded in solving major contemporary challenges with an emphasis on sustainability, human impact on the environment, and addressing climate change and pollution. 

It’s a good time to talk about hopes and ideals for the future, because I’ve moved! Finally! 

I’ve registered for council tax, been to IKEA, and figured out how the bins work: I’m officially a resident in Bristol now! Obviously, I’m still surrounded by boxes, but I’m enjoying just being here. I feel immensely privileged that I’ve been able to make this move, to actively choose how to finish up my 20s, and to bring my job with me. I’ve got another day of annual leave tomorrow before I start back at work on Tuesday, and despite moving house really not being a ‘holiday’, I’ve enjoyed having this full week away, and I feel ready to dive back into emails, PowerPoints, and meetings. 

A few ‘top tips’ for moving that I’ve picked up along the way - some of them definitely fall into the ‘paying for convenience’ category, but for me they were worth it:

1. Hire movers. As soon as you have more ‘things’ than will fit in the back of a big car, hiring movers will make your life significantly easier - not least as they’ll do the loading and unloading for you. I used GB Liners on a recommendation from my old manager at work and they were fantastic. As I had a relatively small amount of things to move (no furniture!), they did my move on a ‘part load’ basis, so it was a lot cheaper than I had worried it might have been, and meant my mum and I could drive down in a hire car with just the essentials for my first week or so.

2. Buy a job lot of moving boxes and packing materials. I had used Direct Global Trading’s boxes on my previous move and was super impressed, so a few weeks ago I went onto their website and ordered a 40-pack of their ‘E’ size boxes as well as some corrugated paper, tape, and so on. At approximately a 44-litre capacity (and about 2 cubic feet) these boxes are hard to overfill, even if you have a lot of books (like I do). Using all matching boxes meant that they stacked really easily in the old flat and in transit, and means the wall of boxes waiting for me to unpack isn’t too unsightly - plus it was really easy to do a quick count and check that I wasn’t using more moving space than I had told the movers I would need. 

3. Pop an AirTag in one of your boxes. I had great fun watching the progress of my things around the country - they went all the way north to Aberdeen before starting the journey southbound!

4. Expect at least one SNAFU. For me, that was realising when I went to get my bike ready for the movers on Tuesday morning that I had in fact packed the keys to my bike lock in one of my boxes (whoops). After an unsuccessful attempt to find them, I switched into ‘plan B’ mode: I’ll arrange to have my bike shipped separately, or bring it down on the train (luckily there’s a direct Crosscountry service from Edinburgh to Bristol which you can book a bike on). 

5. Book a grocery delivery to arrive in your first couple of days at the new place. Being able to snap back into my usual morning coffee, cereal, and banana routine without having had to find my way to - and around - a new supermarket has made the first week feel a lot easier.  

And now I get to switch focus from ‘preparing to move’ to ‘settling in’ - it’s time to go and explore some of the lovely bakeries and cafes I’ve been saving in my Google Maps for months!

Speak soon,

Lily

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