I’m writing this column in the middle of mayhem. We’re moving house, you see, and there's boxes and stuff everywhere.

I’ve got my stepson helping cart them down the 49 steps to the garage and I think he’s on his ninth or 10th load for the morning.

At the moment he thinks I’m doing something vitally important on the computer before we have to disconnect it but I’m just killing time writing a column that popped into my head while I was pretending to clean out the fridge.

By the time he realises what’s going on, he should just about have the place completely packed up. You don’t get to my age without learning a few tricks!

Actually, I think it’s only fair he’s carrying the burden because his mother has already outwitted me well and truly.

I started holidays today, which would usually be cause for celebrations involving copious amounts of alcohol, half a side of beef and a rock band.
But all it means this time is that I have all day to pack, clean, pull beds apart and so on.

She doesn’t start her holidays for another two days and somewhere in the complicated process of planning the move, we agreed the removalists should come early tomorrow.

The way I figure it (and it’s probably crossed her mind as well), she’ll start her holidays just as I finish unloading the last box at the new place. So who’s the idiot in this relationship?

They say that moving house and getting divorced are two of the most stressful things you can do in your life.

I’ve done both, so I can speak with some authority when I say that while the divorce was messy, as I sit here surrounded by boxes and general mess I reckon this moving thing is right up there.

Hold on a minute, the young bloke is struggling with something so I’d better give him a quick hand…

There, I’m back again.

He was having trouble holding the door open while balancing five boxes and making me a cup of coffee. So I held the door for him.

I know, I know. I’m just a big softie, although I warned him I didn’t want to hear any more of that, “Oh, I’ve fallen down the steps and broken my leg” routine.

I told him I’m far too busy doing something really important on the computer to be disturbed with minor things such as broken bones and concussion. Now, where was I?

Oh yeah, my wife’s apparently successful attempts to avoid this moving house thing. When I finally twigged at the swiftie she’d managed to pull, I confronted her on it.

But I didn’t get too far before she hit me with the old, “You’re bloody lucky we weren’t together during the big move of 1998”. Huh?

Until now I‘d never heard of the big move of 1998. It seems she and her ex-husband and the kids were moving from one town to another and his employer brought in a team of professional removalists.

My wife and her best friend had planned to play an active role in things such as packing the crockery and so on but took one look at the removalists and quickly changed their minds.

Rather than the usual array of beefy men who do this sort of work, the company had sent a team of the most muscular, tanned young men the girls had ever seen.

Possibly male strippers moonlighting as removalists (stranger things have happened). I’m not sure but apparently these blokes were oozing sex appeal and baby oil in equal amounts.

“Bugger the moving,” said the girls and promptly grabbed two deck chairs and a six-pack of bourbon so they could sit back and enjoy the show.

“I’ve never heard that story before,” I told my wife after she had finished – a whimsical, far-away smile on her face.

“Don’t worry,” she sighed. “What’s the chance of that happening again?”
Anyway I’ll be at work all day.”

But I rang the removals company, just to be on the safe side.

“You don’t have any strippers working for you?I suppose,” I asked the puzzled lady on the other end.

“No?”

“No, I didn’t think so.

“I just thought it was worth asking.

“I don’t suppose you know of any female pole dancers who moonlight as removalists?

“Yes, you’re right. There’s probably not many of them around.”

But I will live in hope until the truck backs into our driveway.