Sunday January 3rd

Today I reached the peak of the stress levels but, funnily enough, it is all downhill from now on.

You know how it is when there are a million balls in the air and you wonder how you are going to catch them all. Then all of a sudden you turn around and you find that you have caught half of them and the other half are sailing gently down to the ground in a very ordered manner. Well , that was me today. This morning I thought that I was never going to be ready for the packers tomorrow and now here I am , early evening, dinner in the oven for the last time, calm, glass of wine at hand and everything more or less ready. Phew!

This afternoon was the English Speaking Union Christmas party. This morning I thought there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of me attending, but then by 2 o'clock I hit the shower, soaked under the spray for a while and was ready to face the world.

The ESU in Princeton is a bit of an institution and I have loved going to the lectures and being part of the organisation. They are a bunch of seriously interesting people of every conceivable walk of life. One minute one is talking to a preservation architect and the next a composer. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and felt very loved as everyone was saying how much they were going to miss me. That said, there is an ESU in Sao Paulo which I intend to join so I hope that I can transfer my membership.

Our new tenants also came round this afternoon to walk through the house and work out how everything works - did I mention that we are planning on renting out the house ?

They are dear friends of ours and another day I will tell you the funny story of how we met. It was a freaky moment but that is for another day.

For now, it is packing day tomorrow and tonight is the last night in our house before the 4 of us head off in different directions and to our different worlds.