1. No matter how stressful you think it's going to be, it will be 10 times more stressful than you imagined.

2. Three people is not enough.

2.a Two people is not enough to clean an entire flat in the 8 hours you have before the keys are due back.

3. You can literally clean things till your fingers bleed.

4. It is rather distressing as spending an entire day cleaning one house only to come to your new place which is covered in boxes and things strewn into whatever space you could find.

5. Oven cleaner makes your lungs tickle.

6. Tea is underrated.

7. Men need direction and someone cracking the whip or they get distracted by Things That Might Possibly Need To Be Done But Are Not What I Should Be Doing Right Now.

7.a Men are very useful when moving house (and at other times) so one shouldn't be too mean to them.

8. Fathers-in-law a extremely helpful and good at things like changing light fittings, rewiring, and building Ikea bookshelves.

9. We have a LOT of stuff. Like, a fucking LOT of stuff

10. I love books. Possibly more than I should. Books have decided where things go and what rooms look like in our new house. I need more books.

11. Living in a house one owns is much, much, much nicer than renting one.

12. We have a whole drawer full of bags or boxes of sugar. I don't know why.

13. It is possible to just Keep Doing Things for three days in a row till nearly midnight even though you are so tired you could probably sleep on a stampede of bison.

14. Beds are important.

So, dear Rafonauts. Tim and I have finally moved into the house we bought at the end of February. It is so very good to finally be in our own home. Even though we still have lots of unpacking to do (I cried when I got home today after cleaning the old flat), we're in our very own place and that feels good. Hooray.