Author: Colleen
Today kicks off my new weekend series of blog posts geared to help you prepare to move to London on two levels: on Saturdays, I’ll offer a quick tip on packing/other moving logistics so you can attack the weekend productively. Sundays, then, will be reserved for little historical tidbits on the “warriors” who fought to build London into the city it is today since antiquity.
It’s just something I’m trying.
So, for Weekend Warrior Saturday, allow me to start offering packing advice. My husband and I had to pack for our own London relocation immediately following our honeymoon, so I appreciate first-hand how daunting a task that is to first undertake. You are probably staring down your entire household and just trying to fathom how all that is going to go all the way over here. This becomes more complicated when looking all around your home environment with strong feelings of sentiment and sadness over having to say goodbye.
When you move to your new London home, you will be needing to recreate that same sort of 
sentiment. So, while you’ll likely have to leave some things behind (especially if you’re moving from a house to a flat), don’t pressure yourself at this stage to leave everything behind of meaning to you. Yes, you ought to identify what items are most necessary to a basic living, but don’t discount the intangible value ascribed to those simple things that, though they wouldn’t help keep your body alive in a desert-island scenario, would certainly help sustain your soul (hey, it’s arguable that the locket-photo Tom Hanks had of his fiance in Castaway is what kept him alive, after all 
)
So, today, before all the elbow-grease nitty-gritty of packing truly commences, I’m asking you to already reflect on those little sentimental somethings that help make you, well, you. Not that we should define ourselves by material possessions, but there are those tangible objects that are symbolic of the people that we are and/or aspire to become. And because these items will likely be precious to you personally (if not monetarily) and therefore irreplaceable, I recommend you set them aside for packing into your carry-on, not moving boxes.
My husband and I had to wait 3 months before we were reunited with our moving boxes in London, so I was grateful that my carry-on contained a photo album, travel journals, and my beloved stuffed animal panda for a little bit of home-comfort And sentimental schmuck that I am, I should have likewise stuffed it with more photos and a few favorite books and other pleasures to put me at ease and feel more like myself.
While this all might sound too touchy-feely for practical moving advice, I promise you you’ll understand where I’m coming from once London Relocation Ltd. has placed you in your London flat and you feel the immediate need to seek the familiar in the unfamiliar. Happy weekend!
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