Run! Run! As fast as you can!

 I am moving again.

 As plummeting down the cliff in one's own home is practically unheard of in witchy circles*, I am moving out of Château DeVice and into a more life-prolonging gingerbread house.  It's only a few hundred yards from my current cliff-top abode and - importantly - those few hundred yards are inland.  My new home is nearer the woods (and the allotment), and not likely to find itself scattered across the beach after collapsing over the cliff for at least a couple of centuries (possibly only one, if sea levels continue to rise dramatically). 

 Gingerbread houses are hard to come by these days as most of the originals have been devoured by thoughtless, greedy children over the centuries, or dissolved in the rain when their occupant met Death for the last time and the preservative spell wore off.  Those that are left tend to be inhabited by mad old crones, or have been turned into sites of occult historical interest by the Gingerbread Board.  Speaking of which, the 'Board occasionally permits a new gingerbread house to be built as long as circumstances, conditions, and quotas allow.  Quite what those circumstances, conditions and quotas are is anyone's guess as the 'Board are quite inscrutable and experts in obfuscation and dead-end paper trails.  As I can attest to after I applied for a new home...**

 I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea?  I suspect the SubCs had something to do with it and, typically, they buggered off and left me to it when I found myself before the Gingerbread Board to demonstrate my suitability to own and maintain a new gingerbread home.  I'm not going to go into all the rigmarole and hoop-jumping I had to go through (and am still going through), as it was - and still is - very stressful and mind-boggling.

 I think the least stressful part of this whole process has been choosing which of the fittings and extras I want/need (although, deciding between the various kitchen cupboard colours almost had me tearing my hair out!).  An easy first choice was not upgrading to a range-style oven.  I think it's only sensible not to have an oven that one can fit in (if given an unexpected shove from behind, for example).  Built-in wardrobes are a must - hopefully without any portals to snowy realms covered in faun shit.  As are en-suite bathrooms with naiad filters to prevent this sort of intrusion, and a downstairs loo (inside, at that!).  There's modern plumbing and central heating, but no cellar, though.  And no chimney, but that's not necessarily a bad thing...

 Aside from the stress, another of the reasons I haven't been around much this past month or so, is all the packing and sorting and stuff.  It's one thing boxing up all one's books and DVDs, but quite another trying to fit the monster-under-the-bed into a cardboard box, or trying to get that manticore back in the cake tin.  I'm also a little concerned about my yeti as we're leaving the freezer here, so I'm going to have to try and persuade it to live in Inexcuseable's cluttered ice-box as I don't think Château DeVice's buyers would take kindly to an inhabited freezer...

 In between moving out of Château DeVice next week and into the DeVice Mansion (as I've taken to calling my new gingerbread abode***) in January/February (which is when it should be ready), I shall be staying with my sister, Inexcuseable, again.  What this means is that I'll probably be around a lot less, although I will endeavour to flit around your blogs to keep up with everything.  Especially as The Very Mistress is about to commence her famous Garden Photos Event, and Ms Scarlet should be hosting the return of the Freakin' Green Elf Shorts!  I'll also be working on the end-of-year review: The Year of the Upside-Down Strumpet Constellation Coven Awards (although it might be called something else by the time I've finished.  If I do finish it, that is).

 Anyway, that's it for now.  I wish a wonderful weekend upon you all, and I'd better get on with some more packing!


* Unlike, say, being squashed by one in high winds...
** After all, they don't let just any old witch live in a gingerbread house, you know.
*** Which saves on conjuring up an â, or clicking my mouse an extra couple of times to get one.