Maybe we're getting excited a bit too early as were not moving to Spain until autumn this year but our first box is packed.

It contains the christmas tree, its decorations and lights. We won't need any of the contents again until after we've moved to Spain. It all came down from the loft in 3 boxes, we did throw a bit of stuff away and a lot of packaging and when we took everything down last Thursday we managed to get it all into the oblong box which originally just held the tree. A bit of a squeeze but with the help of a lot of parcel tape it's very secure.

I now have less than 100 days left to attend work (I'm part time), getting very excited about that.

There is no feeling like the beginning of the process of thinning things down and starting to pack in preparation. The first box sets the scene for many more. Now you will be making lists and yet more lists of things to dispose of and the important things to keep. Managing to keep your feet on the ground for work will become more and more difficult.

Rosemary

I remember that feeling well! If you are anything like us, you will not believe how much stuff you have accumulated over the years, and we hadn't thought of ourselves as hoarders! I'd like to think that we haven't begun building up more since we moved, but I'm not so sure.

We thought we wouldn't have much stuff to move as we'd got rid of such a lot and weren't bringing any furniture to Spain, but we still ended up with 63 boxes.

Good luck.

On the count down, how many more sleeps?

I would suggest you take this opportunity to declutter. Sell, give away, bin those items you have not used in the last twelve months.

I don't live abroad full time but have in the past. You will amaze yourself how little you actually need in a home.

We moved from a big house to a small house to a yacht. Each reduction in belongings was a relief - like a load being lifted from my shoulders.

My OH scoffs at my lists but I need them to kep my sanity. We did an inventory of the house, shed and garage almost a year ago with columns headed sell, give away, take etc, we just didn't get around to filling those columns in at the time. It's so long ago a lot of things are now in different rooms to where they are shown on the original list.

Work is getting more difficult, colleagues are fed up with me crowing that this will be lmy ast winter in the UK. They're all coming to vist though when we move. At least we won't have to get up and go out in the dark for much longer.

We've been in our current house 4 years. Before that we had moved 4 times in the previous 2 years, every time trying to declutter. We're bringing some furniture but most of our things will be boxed. The things I'm most worried about fitting into the van are OHs tools, just DIY, he's not a tradesman. Every time I go into the shed I groan.

We're committed to a Luton van load of belongs and will only have a couple of hours to take to the tip anything that won't fit in. That sounds like another list coming up headed "Prioritise belongings to go".

Thank you for the good wishes.

In one sense too many, as I'm impatient to move but we still have work to do on the house before we rent it out so maybe not enough!

Do you realise that Spain has dark winter mornings...unless you plan to sleep late

We found that we took loads of useless stuff and the things we should have taken we left behind

Yes but I won't have to get up and go out in the dark. If I do it will be by choice, that's what I'm looking forward to.

That happened to us too!

We car booted, charity shopped and dumped a ridiculous amount of stuff and thought that we had done well but there are absolutely loads and loads of things in drawers and plastic boxes that have not been looked at or used since we arrived. We have also added to this so really do need to do a bit of sorting out.

Rosemary

We put a load of useful stuff that we couldn't do without in the loft of our house 13 years ago and it's never been looked at since. My brother does removals. He makes loads of money from people putting stuff is store and never using it again. He charges them storage for years until they tell him to dump it.

My OH always suffered with his back so he invested in an inversion table just before we moved because he thought that his back would be bad with renovating the house. It is nearly 6 years later, he has not had any problems with his back so the inversion table has never been used. Yesterday I unwrapped it, took it to pieces and dumped it at our Ecoparc. Great not to have this in the corner of our roof terrace.

Rosemary