Comic Cuts - 28 May

Only a quick note today as things are already starting to become a little chaotic. I missed my trip up to the London ABC show on Sunday due to pressure of needing to get the process of moving started. Partly it was the need to scan some original artwork boards that I have in the house for future projects so they can be returned to the safe arms of their owner rather than put them at risk in the hands of uncaring removal men.

Most of the artwork is too big to go on the scanner in one go, so it involves two scans then a lot of fiddling around to join the artwork back together again. Eventually I'll get around to putting in titles and doing some relettering (some of the strips don't have any captions) but, first things first, if I can get the art scanned and out of the house that will be one less thing to worry about when we move.

There have been interruptions and disruptions daily. As I write this we have an Estate Agent showing a potential buyer around the house and every five minutes (or so it seems) there's another phone call about someone wanting to see the property, or canceling a visit. One woman has moved her appointment three times... all this and the house only went on the market on Monday.

Somewhere in between work and interruptions I've been trying to sort out my own mess. Anything that can be chucked, I'm chucking. That meant five extra rubbish bags being picked up this morning and seven bags of paper (so far) stacked up for recycling. Every bag the council take (and this is why we pay our council tax) is a bag I no longer have to worry about. My main worry at the moment is having no boxes for packing so there's a tendency to just move things around. If you remember the last...

Interruption! Third person through the house this morning.

... If you remember the last time we had to shift our belongings out of the house back in 2008, the guys doing the removing brought 100 boxes with them and had run out before the packing was finished. That was half the house, so we'll certainly need double that amount. And if it takes three fit blokes a day to pack 100 boxes it's going to take one unfit bloke at minimum six days to pack 200 boxes.

So there will almost certainly be some interruptions to the usual Bear Alley service and definitely some interruptions when it comes to answering questions. Don't let that stop you writing comments... I'm just saying you might not get a reply for a while.

It's not my intention to turn Bear Alley into a diary of despair. I'm actually quite cheerful at the moment, digging through boxes and stumbling across old books and magazines I've not seen for years. There's a few things I'll try to get onto the scanner so you'll have something to look at over the weekend.