6am on a Friday morning and I’m standing, with my husband, in a room of half open, half-filled boxes. We’ve sold our house. We have to be out of it in 3 hours and on a plane later that day – we’re moving countries. There’s been a huge misunderstanding: the van that arrived last night to take our things across Europe could only take 1/3 of what we own. I’m now looking at the 2/3rds of our possessions splayed across our front room, in chaos. We have to throw or give it all away to charity shops (in the next 3 hours without a car!). I say goodbye to my much-used two slow cookers along with countless other much-loved stuff. It’s only stuff, right? I’ve missed slow cooking so much. It suits me. It suits ancestral traditions. Finally, a few weeks ago, I felt able to get a new one. Curls of beef and barley stew are scenting my #quarantinekitichen here in Italy. And part of me feels much more content.