To do, or not to do, that is the question

So, yes, I've been a very negligent blogger of late. Apologies to anyone who reads this who has assumed that I've a/ moved to Scotland and decided to leave all of my previous life behind me or b/ collapsed under the weight of 3.5 years' worth of newspapers, magazines, unnecessary homewares and the like whilst trying to ready myself for The Big Move. When I gaily chucked in my notice at work, I thought it'd mean I'd have 3 months of languidly tapping out essay-length missives about all and sundry. You'd be bored to sobs with my daily witterings on the things I was going to miss about London, and my musings on the many years that I'd been a resident of the Big Smoke. How was I going to cope without Selfridges, without Liberty and without the Tube, etc? What joys awaited me in the 'burgh (as no-one calls it)? Would having to read *shock* real books mean that I could no longer indulge in the downmarket delights of Heat and Grazia?

But as usual, my vision of how life is going to be, and how life actually is was massively out of whack. Yeah, sure, within 4 days of me handing in my notice, my boss had asked me for a list of all the meetings I chaired/went to/was due to attend. And then booted me off them all. Which felt a tad harsh, but then who actually wants to spend their time in meetings? I suffer from meeting narcolepsy - 5 minutes after sitting down with an agenda in front of me, I practically black out with boredom. So having at least 3 hours freed up every day has meant that I can stare blankly at my 'to do' list for even longer.

When I rashly decided to move to Edinburgh, my 'to do' list ran:
1/ Find place to rent in Edinburgh
2/ Rent out flat in London
3/ Send email to friends and family to see if they can facilitate either of first 2 points

Totally achievable! Loads of time! Kick back for the entirety of May! Plan a holiday! Practise Olympic-level procrastination!

It started off well: I found a huge flat within my price range to rent. I went to Edinburgh (sporting a cracking black eye as I'd come a total cropper on a paving stone the night before. My sister supportively told me I looked like 'a battered wife'. What the estate agent must've thought, I've no idea. Probably 'double check the crockery inventory when she moves out - she looks a bit of a bruiser') and it was the first one I saw. It's so massive that the walk-in wardrobe (!) currently houses a piano (!!). I know! My whole flat could fit into that cupboard. A minor problem - the incumbents weren't moving out till the middle of September. So now I had to look for 2 flats - which of course is great when the period you need a short-term let coincides with the Edinburgh Festival. When even the estate agent said that he sofa surfs and rents his flat out for a vast amount of cash.

Luckily, the family/friends pleading netted a result on that front. So, just my flat to sort out, then. After a lecture from my dad on, essentially, not being a numpty and handing the whole thing over to an estate agent in order to avoid having to sort out a plumber at short notice from the opposite end of the country when something inevitably springs a leak a week after I've left, I finally bit the bullet and went into the estate agent's at the bottom of my road. He turned up on Monday to value it. He made lots of positive noises, and kindly overlooked the fact that I still don't have a proper kitchen floor or proper bedroom curtains and the bathroom still needs painting. He gave me an enormous folder full of forms to fill in. He said loads of people were looking, they'd have no bother renting it out and when could I get the keys over to him. He was very nice and he had very long eyelashes and very shiny shoes. I nearly hugged him.

I now, however, have a 'to do' list that's quadruple the length of any list I've had in my entire life. It includes such varied tasks as:
1/ Book in for an 'EPC' assessment. An energy report that no client my estate agent has ever had has ever thought/wanted to ask to see. This will cost me £50.
2/ Fill in forms for my mortgage company which will grant me their 'permission to let' my flat. This will not change the terms of the mortgage in any way, shape or form. For this privilege, I have to pay them £225. It's no wonder people hate banks.
3/ Get some sort of gas certificate, certifying nothing is going to blow up.
4/ Ditto on the electric front (this of course has to be done by different people).
5/ Work out whether to have my flat professionally cleaned. God knows what that will cost.
6/ Dash into work then straight back home again in order to have keys cut because there are already people wanting to view the flat. Yes, at midday today. Ooops.
7/ Try not to create an enormous festival of paper strewn all over the floor every time I endeavour to pack anything - because strangers will come round and see it.
8/ Repeatedly call the kitchen floor people and check that they have ordered the lino and might come round to fit it before I leave the country. (Doubtful).
9/ Worry about painting the bathroom.
10/ Call the plumber and beg him to sort out the bathroom, the gas certificate, the boiler and anything else he can think to charge me for.
11/ Call my parents and beg for money.
12/ Wonder if I'm going to be able to work out how to put up the curtains that a friend has given me. Resign myself to asking friends who're coming over for lunch on Sunday to help on that front, rather than bring a bottle of wine.
13/ Call gas/electricity/TV license/water/Council Tax/gym to cancel everything. Inevitably write date in diary a week before I'm due to leave when I have to call them back to confirm that yes, I really am going and could they please actually close the account.
14/ Panic about how many boxes will fit into my parents' car.
15/ Try to rehome/throw away/recycle more of my possessions.
16/ Panic about not knowing anyone in Edinburgh.
17/ Call the handyman who came round on the 25th May to give me a quote, who still hasn't given me a sodding quote.
18/ Strike off most of jobs for handyman. My tenants will have to make do with the slightly horrid doorknobs I've put up with since I moved in, I've decided.
19/ Worry about whether the mice who moved in whilst I was on holiday will have 'left the building' by the time the tenants move in.
20/ Shout, 'Fuck off, you fucking little fuckers!' at the mice as they whisk by, apparently untroubled by me, and the poison I have put down. (My friend Richard's advice was to buy a cage from the pet shop, kit it out and then leave the door open - so it just looks like your pets are having a run around. Aww, pet mice! Sweet! It's starting to look like a good idea.)
21/ Regret the fact that the sight of a mouse running along the top of the radiator caused me to let go of my door in shock when I came in, causing the latch to get jammed. Which resulted in me having to shove the door shut, and then not being able to get it open again. Which cost me £90 in locksmith's fees.
22/ Wonder if, in fact, my flat doesn't want to let me go and this is its way of telling me.
23/ Redirect mail - another £17.
24/ Try to re-jig contents insurance to reflect my new landlady status.
25/ Try to arrange to see friends/experience all that London has to offer/go round all my favourite haunts. Whilst panicking about not having packed everything.

I think you can agree, it's a challenge for someone who procrastinates quite as badly as I do to work through this list, ticking things off. (So far, I'm doing very well on the panicking side). How on earth do people manage when they emigrate? Or have to move more than a one bedroomed flat? With children? It's truly beyond me.