‘The Packing Holiday,’ A Cosmic Comedy of Delays, Sticky Tape and Cardboard

This is an AI-designed image; the parameters for which were instructed by me to create the chosen image, because I'm so bored with the typical ‘writer’ images that anybody can find on typical image sites, such as Unsplash!”

Well, the unexpected shock finally arrived: Our already arranged house move did a ‘full 360-degree about-turn’ and got delayed, not once, not twice but 3 times...

Currently, my wife and I have lived in our current local authority home for the last eighteen years nearly, all the while never knowing what lay beneath its strutural foundations, apart from what we understood was the baseline for every house that is. However our current house was built in 1930: (NHBC)

Yet, many years later, after every one of our six children had grown up and started their own lives. My wife (after I became physically disabled and had to retire a whole two decades too early to even draw my pension) began investigating deep into the history of our home; shortly after we had a low-level driveway installed, with an aged tree along with its full trunk uprooted in the process, along with one of the rear rooms being completely gutted and transformed into a wetroom shower area.

The council contractor, assigned to build the wetroom discovered how strange it was to have to create a fully separate drainage system alongside having to dig much further than he usually would have done for a drain.

A couple of weeks on from that, it was only when my wife chose to try out the new shower for herself, that we started noticing problems that should not be there. Today, everyone knows and accepts that both men and women alike often enjoy growing their hair long: and long hair can of course be a nightmare for drains because they can far too easily clog them up.

So, after having been used to declogging plugholes, since both two of our daughters wanted to grow theit hair long, along with our oldest son, who went through a heavy mental long hair phase; you could say I'm a 'declogging pro!'

"Yet this shower drain was uncanny."

Jonathan Townend, RMN, Author

I had to unscrew four sets of circular plastic panels, then finally ease out a half-foot long narrow, groove-shaped cylinder... then was I able to finally access the water level which was strangely high. Well, there was the offending clogger, but so was something else, and totally something not expected to be discovered in that water.

Yes, there was plenty of loose matted hair alright, but what came up with it, and still much remains in there even now, clay deposits.We then went on to discover that our house was built in 1930, the first house in the local area, what was known then as 'slum housing'.

It was actually not until a further six years later that the 'National House Building Council' (NHBC) was set up to regulate the legal standards for building houses: sadly that was six years too late for our house.

According to the author, Bradley Mason (15th June 2026) 'most houses were built with solid external walls, on shallow brick or no foundations and typically using lime-based mortar. Damp courses were non-existent, and only gradually introduced during the 1920s.'

"Crucially, and this was the turning point that 'snapped the giraffe's neck,' and the beginning of the end for our home. Cracks began appearing on external walls, and over the next couple of months, so too did internal cracks start appearing, but ones which were aligned with the external ones."

Jonathan Townend, RMN, Author

But that wasn't the worst of it, oh no, after beginning to get concerned over the developing wall cracks (which had now begun to appear vividly) we thought that getting some fresh air might help... so off we went for a walk around the three sides of our semi-detached house.

So, where do I even start to explain what we found?

A large soft patch had appeared in the rear lawn, feeling abnormally springy underfoot. Minor cracks in the pavement at the rear had slowly grown in width and length to the point where you could now actually place a whole finger into the gaps. Rainwater pooled in these places every moment it rained, and the two 1930s-type industrial grates (never updated to this date, even now) used to drain perfectly, but with cracks now this far along, drainage became much slower and seeping into the cracks, eroding and widening them further.

But taken together, and adding the deep side gash in the rear pavement, where an eight-centimeter ‘mini cave-like’ opening has now presented all the way down to the ground soil, inclusive of the void separating the concrete from the garden soil, they all start to form a slow disastrous pattern.

It all began as quietly as a whisper.

Subsidence and sinkholes rarely begin with any kind of spectacle. They start with a far quieter subtlety, and with more insidious action. They develop in millimeters, not meters, and tend to give hints, but never headlines. And if you know just how to read those hints, how to notice those cracks, the tilts, the sudden softness of patches in your garden soil, and the slowly developing ground separation from the house itself, as our house began to expose a long continuous gap from the external lower house, you can then start to see the story unfolding long before anything catastrophic happens.

Then suddenly, while we were both looking forward to moving into our new purpose-built home just one month away, 'the whole situation became a full‑scale cosmic comedy, complete with wildfire, road damage, and a subcontractor who apparently chose dramatic collapse over finishing our new home.'

Of course, there are delays, everyone knows they occur , but then there are most definitely new-build house‑move delays; it’s a red-letter category of time distortion in which months stretch like 'spandex,' and you hope that the appointed subcontractors stay the course, but if not, those cardboard boxes will rapidly multiply and begin developing obscure personalities of their own; just like the Tribbles in Star Trek...

Our journey began innocently enough: a forest wildfire, a damaged stretch of the A31, and a subcontractor who looked at the build schedule, sighed deeply, then opted for administration as if it were a spa treatment.

For weeks, Carol and I had been living in a state of semi‑packed anticipation. Our current house looked like it was halfway through ‘molting like a shaggy dog.’ Cupboards stood open like shocked mouths. Boxes gathered in corners, whispering among themselves. ‘Bubble wrap lounged across the floor like a sunbathing python.’

• We were read

• Emotionally ready

• Logistically ready

• Spiritually ready

Then came the news, hitting us like a bulldozer demolishing a wall: “Possibly Looking at Four to five months’ delay.”

Jonathan Townend

Not a polite delay. Not a ‘just a few weeks.’ But a delay with 'gravitas.' The type of stoppage that arrives wearing a long coat and carrying a clipboard.

At first, it left us rather perturbed. We didn't spend weeks wrestling with sticky tape that ‘deludes itself into thinking it’s really superglue,’ losing that pair of illusory scissors ‘more times than I’ve lost hope, patience, or the will to live,’ and labeling boxes ‘Misc: Open Only If You Hate Yourself’ without building momentum. But once the shock settled, something unexpected happened.

• We relaxed

• We exhaled

• Flopped, fully exhausted, onto the sofa, which luckily wasn’t yet packed

• Then invented the ‘concept of a packing holiday’

A packing holiday is a rare and beautiful thing. It’s the only holiday where you don’t go anywhere, don’t unpack anything, and best of all, you don’t spend any money, but don’t relax in any conventional sense; yet somehow feel gloriously liberated.

It’s a temporary ceasefire between you and the cardboard. It’s a truce negotiated by fate.

Jonathan Townend

Suddenly, the boxes weren’t judging us. The tape wasn’t clinging to our elbows. The bubble wrap wasn’t plotting to suffocate us in our sleep. The house (our sinking, stubborn, emotionally complicated house) seemed to sigh and say, “Fine. Stay a bit longer if you really have to; I suppose I can tolerate you.”

Carol, who had meanwhile been suffering from a severe case of Mover’s Block (be aware: this link will take you to my Medium story) all along, perked up instantly. Nothing cures packing paralysis like being told you don’t have to pack. She practically floated through the kitchen, feeling liberated from the tyranny of bubble wrap, and I swear the scissors only reappeared out of sheer relief.

And me? I found myself enjoying the absurdity of it all. The wildfire. The road damage. The subcontractor collapse. It’s not a delay; it’s a narrative arc. It was a complete character development.

It’s the cosmos saying, “I’m not done with this chapter of your lives just yet.”

The wildfire was the opening act: dramatic, cinematic, but extremely dangerous, and wildly inconvenient. It didn’t just disrupt the build; it set the tone. It was the universe clearing its throat, warming up the stage lights, and announcing that our move would not be as simple as everyone thought it was going to be.

This was the kind of event that makes you stop and think, “Surely this is the worst it can get, right?”

But the macrocosm, that ominipotent endless void, was just warming up and getting started.

Jonathan Townend

Then came the A31 damage, a road surface so battered it looked like it had been personally insulted by the wildfire and decided to take revenge. The road didn’t just crack; it cracked strategically, like it had read the script notes and wanted to contribute to the plot.

• It added weeks

• It added drama

It added the kind of logistical chaos that makes you stare at Google Maps like it’s a prophecy… but never trust those digital maps when night falls, as it finds fun in directing you straight to a cliff, or to water… believe me, I know. Google Maps is the exact opposite of a vampire, which likes the cover of night but fears the daylight hours…’

Jonathan Townend

And just when we thought the saga couldn’t get any more absurd, the universe said: “Hold my clipboard.”

Of all the delays, the subcontractor collapsing had to be my favorite, not emotionally, but narratively. It’s the kind of twist that arrives with the confidence of a Shakespearean messenger galloping in to announce that half the cast has died off‑stage.

• One moment, the build was progressing once more

• Walls were being plastered

• Pipes were being piped

• Someone, somewhere, was most likely measuring something with a laser and feeling very important.

And then came… the utter silence.

Jonathan Townend

Eventually, the update arrived: “One of the subcontractors has gone into administration.” That was a phrase that sounded polite, almost dignified, until you understood that it was the construction equivalent of a character ‘dramatically fainting into a potted plant.’

I imagined the subcontractor staring at the schedule and whispering: “No. Absolutely not. I refuse to be involved in this timeline. I choose collapse.”

The subcontractor's sudden departure didn’t just slow things down; it created a vacuum. A bureaucratic black hole. A gravitational anomaly in which paperwork, deadlines, and all our hopes were sucked into a swirling vortex of “We’ll update you soon, but right now, your new home is not ready for you both to move into... sorry”

It was almost impressive. The wildfire disaster had tried. The A31 damage gave it an extremely good attempt. But the subcontractor? They well and truly committed themselves to drumming up the final leg of damage.

Looking back though, it’s clear that these three disasters were never separate events. "They were collaborating. They were in meetings. They had a shared vision of disaster and setbacks."

The wildfire, the A31 damages, and the subcontractor going into administration weren’t random misfortunes; they were almost a cosmic committee. A committee dedicated to ensuring that our house move did not, under any circumstances, proceed smoothly.

Together, they formed a perfect trifecta of chaos. A religious trinity of inconvenience. A narrative arc so absurd it felt scripted.

Jonathan Townend

So, instead of moving, we entered our packing holiday: a serene, comedic limbo where nothing happens, everything is delayed, and the boxes sit quietly, as if waiting for the next plot twist.

In the end, these delays didn’t derail us, though; they simply stretched the story, giving us time we didn’t know we needed.

• Time to breathe

• Time to laugh

Time to let the house hold us a little longer before we step into the touchscreen‑panelled future waiting on the other side of the chaos.

And when we finally do move, months from now, I suspect we’ll carry this strange intermission with us, a stark reminder that even in life’s most ridiculous chapters, there’s always room for humor, resilience, and the quiet, surprising comfort of staying still a little longer.

Authors Note:

This essay is one chapter in the ongoing chronicle of our long, strange house‑move saga, shaped as much by delays and disasters as by the humor we’ve managed to find inside them. Writing these pieces helps me stay grounded, amused, and occasionally sane, especially when the universe seems determined to hand me new material. If you’ve ever had life stall in unexpected ways, I hope this story offers a moment of recognition, a smile, and maybe even a little peace in your own pause.

Thanks for reading, and may your delays be far less dramatic than ours.