Saturday October 25th 2025 "Friends, have YOU ever moved home? A lot of us have, haven't we !!!!"

Friends, have YOU ever moved home? It's a "moving" experience, isn't it - no pun intended!!! But spare a thought also for your poor neighbours, as this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire makes painfully clear!!

And if you missed it, or don't live in East Hampshire (or both!!!!), here's the report in full, slightly edited for content and language (!) - oh, and for style too haha!!!

Yikes !!!! 

It's a bit of a "wake-up" call, isn't it, but it also brings a faint sign of a chuckle to the faces of me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois here in leafy Liphook, Hampshire, this morning, as we make one more fruitless search for a packet of "good" panel pins that we're sure must be somewhere in the house (!). But if we find it, we'll save a decent 85p, so let's not give up the hunt just yet!

my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me, taking our daily walk this morning,

disappointed at having failed to find our valuable packet of "good" panel-pins,  

but pausing to admire the colours in nearby Radford Park and listen to the birdsong

You see, Lois and I have ourselves stunned former neighbours by moving house ourselves, not once but twice since 2022, and a good 50% of our most useful possessions must be lying undiscovered in some phantom drawer or cupboard that we haven't managed to locate yet (!).

flashback to January: Lois and I try to keep out of our movers' way

as they load all our furniture and possessions into their van - what madness it all was!!!

If only we'd seen Edith Pritchett's helpful "The Guardian" Guide to Moving House, sent to us today by Steve, our American brother-in-law. 

What a crazy world we live in, don't we !!!!!

However, our daughter Alison and her family, who live in a crumbling Victorian mansion a few miles away from us in Headley, Hampshire, have opted for "the other way of moving house" - which is, getting builders to more or less "gut" their existing house, and start again, building the kind of house they'd most have liked to move to.

What madness isn't it!!! And after several months, it's still very much "a work in progress", but today Ali and husband Edward have put some encouraging photos on social media, showing the roof completely off, and the rooms "barely" recognisable - no pun intended !!!.

[That's enough unfunny puns! - Ed]

I wonder what their neighbours are thinking - after all, I didn't tell you but it's actually a semi-detached mansion, would you believe! What must it be like, living on the other side of that long-suffering party-wall! Luckily their neighbours - Charles and what's-her-name (Mary????) - are very nice people, very "British", and I expect they're taking all the disruption in their stride - let's hope so, for everybody's sake!!!!!

flashback to 2024: before the demolition work started, Lois showcases

"the Mansion that Jack built", and the bed we used to sleep in, on our visits back in the day

As for the man who had the house built in the first place, back in the 1870's - step forward John "Jack" Parish, one of Queen Victoria's vice-admirals. Jack must be turning in his grave at the very minimum!!!

Poor Jack !!!!!

flashback to 2022: (left) Lois and I join our daughter Alison, her husband Edward,

and their son Isaac, on a hunt for Jack's grave in the parish churchyard (ringed),

and (right) the grave with (inset) Jack himself, at the height of his powers

highlights of the early career of John "Jack" Parish, one of Queen Victoria's vice-admirals

What a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off days !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!