It's an odd feeling to be packing up to move home.
Well to my old home.
It's been too many years to count since I lived under my parents roof. However the realisation slowly dawned a few weeks ago that the "let's replace the kitchen cupboards" programme had spiralled a little out of control. Instead there are walls coming down, rooms being gutted and refurbished. All of it wonderful of course. But when you are three years old and insatiably curious, it's a recipe for disaster.

In fact one of the MABS (my amazing brothers) who is now a respectable member of the community, holds the claim to renovation disaster fame in our family. He was considerably older than Mr. Small when he balanced on the A frame of one of the many houses we grew up in, that my parents renovated around us. Having clearly watched the movie "The boy who could fly" one too many times, he stepped off the ledge. All my poor mother, who was washing dishes at the kitchen sink saw was a blur, as he fell from the second storey, onto the pile of rubble strategically placed just outside the kitchen window. He escaped with only a broken arm. It could have been much worse. A few weeks later I tried to move a sheet of gyprock and dropped it on my toe, promptly breaking it.

The evidence speaks for itself really. Renovations plus children? Expensive AND deadly.
So having ascertained from Barry the Builder just how many people will be in our home and the noise, chaos and mess there will be, especially in the early days, we decided to move out.

Thankfully my parents have kindly agreed to take us in. Naturally this means they themselves have wisely decided to go on a short holiday themselves.

Today I'm the offspring have also been enlisted as small and willing slaves clearing out the laundry and bathroom. We emptied the study and storeroom on the weekend. Husband has been building "magic shelves" all over the place and I have thrown out too many black sacks of clutter to count.

It will be a strange thing to be a parent in my childhood home. But I can't wait for the offspring to spend some real time in a place I loved so much either.