The Big Move


HRO Karl Willem and PA/PR Gromit can't believe we accumulated so much garbage.

Geek babe Natalie pleads for one not to sentimentalize or romanticize the act of moving in a wonderfully eloquent and eventually ironic post.

But how can I not be sentimental? I have lived in the St. Cross Manor for three years interrupted only by two brief periods lodging elsewhere - a summer in a Victorian mansion whose more prominent tenants include various winners of Crufts as well as the then future-Crown Princess of Japan, and an autumn in Bill Clinton's old college because St. Cross Manor had a bug infestation and needed to be sprayed and quarantined. (I remember all our clothes had to be frozen to kill any bug eggs. Blame was pointed to those who went on Safari and came back with those stowaway critters.)

This small dark room hosted many decadent parties and orgies, the walls reverberated with boisterous laughter, and the bed and carpet spoiled with countless types and sources of bodily fluids and illicit drugs that if this were a crime scene in CSI, they'd need a whole season to process it.

I will also miss the convenience of being right smack in the centre of Oxbarrio - two minutes on foot to the pubs, five minutes to college, eight minutes to my lab, and three minutes to the river Cherwell.

I now live in a place at the edge of the bubble. I guess this is a good thing, apart from the very minor risk of my testicles being damaged from the long cycle ride. Oxbarrio has a very strong Reality Distortion Field that drops exponentially away from the centre. I need to be weaned slowly before finally breaking out of this bubble into the real world.


Eventually, we managed to move all the shit to our new place. When we think about it, we only ever really need to keep four important things: our integrity, The Nashman's passport, the Macbook (mainly what's inside the hard drive), and the unbreakable bond that HRO Karl Willem, PA/PR Gromit, and The Nashman share.

HRO Karl Willem and PA/PR Gromit, sleep one last time at St. Cross Manor.

....and all that is left is this. But mark our words, when we become famous like F-listers Gretchen Barreto or Ruffa Gutierrez, the National Trust will put a blue plaque outside this room saying how a naive but loveable Igorot from the mean slums of Baguio started his path to greatness here..(actually, Cambridge might stake their own claim to recruiting me first, but then again, there is a reason I defected...)

The gate to our new place. The uberBlonde graciously went to and fro twice so we can move.....

...our junk from there to here.....

....seriously, we can survive without all this garbage.

At the end of the day, even rubber ducky was very tired from all the shuttling and carrying shit up three flights of stairs. We needed a relaxing warm water soak....

The Nashman in a relaxed state.