Only a mini-entry today, in the form of a gratuitous plug for my mate Mat who's got a show on, Thalidomide! A Musical. I haven't seen it yet but will definitely be going, because he's a very funny man (with the filthiest voice ever, hence getting him to read smutty stories for my Audible show. Sometimes my job really is fun... ) I have seen the Sex Cabaret that follows the musical on the 4th and 11th Feb, which rocks. So go, buy tickets for yourself, your friends and anyone who deserves a good night out. Oh, and don't get put off by the word 'musical'. The lyrics include the word 'cunt' so it won't exactly be Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Now, off to get more boxes. Did I mention how fucking dull moving is?

Boxes. My life is currently made of boxes. To my left there are boxes, to my right there are boxes and, to contain the remaining debris of my flat I need yet more boxes. Luckily, the bloke in the corner shop at the end of my road is very understanding about me sticking my head round the door, smiling sweetly and asking if he's had any more deliveries so I can nab his boxes. See, from those sentences alone, you're beginning to get a vague impression of the sheer box-ness of my life right now.

I'd forgotten quite what a pain in the arse moving is. I'm very glad I allowed a few weeks to get everything sorted because I have no idea how I'd have managed it in a day. I discovered an incredibly useful site, I am Moving that lets you fill in your details and mass mail utility companies. But even with their help, I still found myself writing out ten envelopes to different utility companies today. And combining moving with tax return season isn't the most intelligent move I ever made (though mainly because it involves me watching my bank account drain of money absurdly rapidly - it's not been a lot of extra work thanks to my nice accountant who just takes my receipts and comes back with a neatly ordered folder, filled in tax return and a bill. Which is well worth the lack of hassle.)

On the plus side, I have managed to pack up te bulk of my belongings, and, in doing so, got a fairly accurate representation of the priorities in my life: clothes - three carrier bags; shoes - one carrier bag; beauty products - two carrier bags (baths are one of my favourite forms of stress relief); sex toys - 3 boxes* (insert obvious gag about my other preferred form of stress relief here); glasses - 4 boxes; and books - 25 boxes. So, drinking and reading would appear to be my main preoccupations. And I got rid of three bin-bags worth of books, to whittle it down to only 25 boxes. I suspect moving to the seaside and having easy access to lots of wholesome and outdoory things will be very good for me. Though I imagine I'll acquire even more books to read on the beach.

I'm getting incredibly excited about moving to my new place. I took the first load of stuff down there last weekend with a friend, so I now have a bed and, unsurprisingly, a lot of books, already installed there, making it habitable enough for me to stay the night there now. Later this week, I get the fridge and washing machine (feels very grown up buying my own white goods - every other time I've had a place they've been included with the rental. This place is unfurnished which means I'm not having to put up with someone else's taste for the first time ever. And it also means that my bank account is getting further drained - at least mentally - with dreams of furniture. Luckily, Brighton is full of shops with gorgeous stuff for me to lust over) And this time next week, I get broadband installed, at which point it becomes officially 'home'.

It's strange being in limbo like this. I certainly don't feel at home in my London flat now, possibly because it's in no fit state to invite anyone round. I suspect it may feel more like home when the rest of my stuff has been taken to Brighton so that it can at least be tidy again. No matter how neatly stacked they are, boxes don't really lend ambience.

Anyway, only another two weeks to go and I'll be able to get up and see the sea, and have some semblance of normal life restoring. As is obviously going to happen, since I've been manic with 'life' stuff, work has picked up the pace again: on top of the usual Scarlet and Audible stuff, I've been approached to write a couple more books - one a sequel to a book I wrote last year, which is nice - and there are more exciting things bubbling away. It's going to be interesting to see whether being outside London makes a difference to work. I'm hoping that, as the bulk of my work is done over email, and given a good brief, meetings really aren't necessary, that it shouldn't have any negative effects. And, OK, I'll admit to daydreaming about getting a laptop and working on the wi-fi enabled beach (once the weather gets a bit better anyway)

Going to live by the seaside feels like planning a really long holiday. I hope the feeling lasts.

*I can't remember if I blogged it, but a while back I tried to get my vibrators insured, as I realised they were probably worth more than almost anything else I own. The bank refused because they were 'primarily for business use'. As such I needed to get business insurance. I've yet to call the business insurance number they gave me, for fear of laughing too much.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside. Or at least, I think I do. I've certainly enjoyed seaside holidays over the years. And so, over Christmas, I decided to move to Brighton. I went flat hunting on the 28th December, fell in love with the second place I saw, gave them a deposit, filled in some forms, and I get the keys tomorrow. I figure that there's no point waiting around once you've set your heart on something.

I'm not leaving London quite yet. So's not to have a hellish move, I decided to have a two week overlap period between getting the keys to my new place and moving out of my old place. Tomorrow sees stage one of the move: the big clean. The flat is perfectly clean already, but I've decided I want to get it all sparkling and dust-free before I start moving my belongings there.

I packed the essentials. Namely:

- Cleaning products and dusters (for obvious reasons)
- Laptop with back-up up copies of all my work (so I have copies of my work in London and Brighton, just in case of computer-transporting disasters)
- A CD player and selection of bouncy-type CDs like Blondie and Kaiser Chiefs (to make cleaning less arduous)
- Bath stuff (so I can clean myself after cleaning the flat)
- Martini glasses (well, it'll be nice to be able to offer the people who help me do the big move a week later a decent cocktail...)
- Wine glasses (...or a glass of champagne, and if you drink champagne out of a martini glass it goes flat too quickly)
- Heart shaped fairy lights and disco-ball framed mirror (I'm moving to Brighton. My inner student is allowed to come out)
- Ashtray - though not for real cigarettes, but rather herbal ones. assuming my will-power holds. I'm trying giving up smoking for New Year and, with the help of herbal fags, have been (almost) nicotine free for 11 days now - longer than I've managed on previous non-smoking attempts. OK, the herbal fags still have tar in them, and do smell like an old bonfire made from fishbones (hence the 'almost' nicotine free record - I've twice been out, drinking reasonable amounts and in an enclosed environment. After the first complaint about the stink of the herbal fag, I decided to limit my intake. After the second, I decided I couldn't inflict the stink on anyone else and ponced real fags off people instead. But, given my previously copious smoking habit, I don't think 5 fags in a night when I'd normally smoke at least 20 is that bad) With any luck I'll be able to phase out herbal cigarettes next. There certainly isn't the same compulsion to smoke them as there is with real fags (hell, I've only had four today and I'd have had at least twenty'real' cigarettes by now) And I *have* turned down cigarettes, when a friend who was unaware of my attempt to give up bought me a pack round as a present. However, I'm not getting into smug mode yet - I won't be a proper 'quitter' until I've managed to be drunk and not smoke. But I am making my new flat a non-smoking one once I move in, in an attempt to help me stick to my mission.

I can't quite believe that I'm getting excited about going to Brighton to clean my flat. I'm fairly sure it's because the new flat has a sea view (from the front door, anyway, and that's close enough) and as such feels like a holiday place, rather than because I've developed a cleaning fixation. In fact, looking around my paper-strewn desk, I'm certain of it. It just seems a bit daft to do anything other than perfunctory cleaning/tidying in the old flat, given that everything is getting packed in boxes and moved over the next fortnight anyway. Whereas going to the seaside and cleaning seems a lot less arduous.

Moving aside, I've been doing my usual juggling act. Obviously, there's been a tonne of Scarlet stuff. I've been asked to put together some more book proposals (I prefer writing actual books to book proposals but, right now, I'm happy to have a bit of a break from big swathes of words, so that I can focus on the move) And I'm in the studio recording the next Audible show on Friday. There are also a couple of exciting top secret projects on at the moment, that I'll blather all about once I can.

But for the time being, life is, for once, taking as much time as work. Guess I'd better get back to packing...