Something of a hectic time here at the moment, with plenty to do, plenty to organise, and hardly any free time to get out and do the things I’d like to do most. Not that this is holding me back, which makes the things I have to do a little more stressful for others as they have to wait, but health and happiness are important to me. I am quietly looking for a new apartment, and thinking of selling my house later this year. The idea of continuing to live in such as large house, where many of the rooms are hardly ever used or even entered, on my own, seems to be outdated, especially since all of my leisure time interests are better served by living elsewhere. Specifically I am looking to move out of this small town and into the Big City, in Bremen. There are many advantages to this, even though renting an apartment in Bremen will cost me about the same as my house does, even though the house would be about four times bigger: I will be able to carry on with my leisure time close to my (new) home, and not have to worry about getting the last train back every night. At the moment my nightlife dies a death with the last train shortly after ten on a Saturday, after eleven during the week. The world comes to life at eleven! And travelling in to work each day is hardly a problem, with a direct train connection, taking just as long from the main train station to my work town as the bus does from my present home. Added to which, and this was a game-changer for me, the price of train tickets is being cut.

Last year, for three months over the summer period, the government introduced a nine euro ticket: travel anywhere in the country with ordinary trains and buses – but not the InterCity lines – on this one ticket with no other restrictions. It was such a success that my local transport authority cut their monthly bus pass price from eighty-three to forty, and now the government is taking this interest further, both to support public transport and to help with climate controls, by bringing out a monthly ticket for forty-nine euro from May. At the moment, to travel from Bremen to work, I’d have to pay ninety-three euro, a week. I’m not sure how many people it will get off the roads and into buses and trains, but it will certainly boost the economy, with more people travelling out and about, and spending their money. Financial support in all the right places.

Downside: I will probably have to divest myself of a few thousand books. This is not, in the end, such a bad thing after all, and something I have had to do a few times in the past. The titles which mean the most to me stay with me, and those which have a lesser worth can either be sacrificed, or given the Presidential pardon, depending on their status, and the amount of room I have or will have. And, of course, the amount of wall space available for shelves, and for hanging prints and paintings – of which I have a wide and varied selection too.

But, at the moment, all these things are music for the future, as I do not yet have an apartment to move into. This being part of the most interesting aspect: searching online makes life very much easier, but I haven’t needed to look for accommodation in nearly twenty years, and certainly not with so much competition. I can look at an online advert for an apartment within minutes of it being advertised, and watch the counter rise as more and more people click on the links and come to take a look. I was lucky yesterday, coming as one of the first to a good looking offer, and wrote my contact mail when only eleven had clicked through. A few lines of introduction and click to send, and the visitor number has risen to one hundred. Then advertiser stops the mail application process a few hours later – after we’ve had a conversation and set a date to view – and clicks are at five hundred and more. The application process is stopped, I know from experience, because so many people have sent in a mail inquiry.

So far I’ve written in showing an interest in about fifteen different apartments, but only had replies from three, and one offer of a viewing. The viewing was good, quick but enough, and I sent in all the paperwork to the agent, and that was it finished. I see that the apartment has been reserved for someone, but not for me, as I have not heard anything. People do not show the most basic common courtesy of replying, or letting someone know they are out of the running, regardless of whether it is a private person, or a company.

And then I saw one advert where there is an open viewing, on a Sunday morning, for a basic apartment; cheap and in a fairly run-down area of the city. I noticed it because the same person has another on offer in a small town near me here, and with the same open view conditions. The viewing time is without an appointment, for for exactly half an hour, no matter how many people turn up. Not the sort of person I want to have controlling my living area so I’ve not bothered with either. Common courtesy and friendliness cost nothing but a few seconds of a person’s time, but reap many benefits in both the short and long term.

And there are so many other things to consider: is there a direct link from the apartment, with a bus or tram, to the main railway station; how close are the shops; is there a parcel delivery point nearby; is there a post office nearby; are there other basic amenities and leisure time activities nearby. If I can’t get to the railway station in a decent interval, I don’t save anything by moving. Walking or taking a bus several miles to go for grocery shopping? Doesn’t compute. And a loud, rundown or dirty neighbourhood? Much better to keep on looking and bide my time. Another reason to bide my time is that I have so many visiting cards with this address on them, this telephone number and so on, and hundreds of special stickers for the outside of envelopes – which are not allowed on your letters because: rules – as a return address. My inner “I paid for these” rebels at having them left unused. I didn’t buy them to just throw them out. Not, of course, that I’m going to turn a decent apartment down because I haven’t used all of my return address labels yet.

What I am really looking forward to, aside from the ease with which I can join my friends in the evenings, is heating and running water. Since the pipe burst in December I still do not have any heating – it went over to minus temperatures against last night, and we have snow on the ground – and I have to turn the water supply off at night so the remaining pipes don’t freeze. I take a watering can full of hot water from my shower down to the kitchen to do the washing up each day. I use an electric heater sometimes late at night, when I’m sitting at my desk reading or writing, but the energy costs for a heater are too high to keep it going all the time. Imagine the luxury of being able to come home to an apartment which is already warm, and being able to get hot water straight out of the tap without needing to go down into the cellar and turn it back on at the mains. First World Problems, as we say. Sleeping without a woollen hat on my head, and being able to feel my toes after an hour of sitting at my desk will also be advantages.

If I could return to reading books and writing the occasional letter in the evenings, rather than being tired out after a fruitless day at work, I would also be much happier. Truth be told, I have had little chance to read much, often spending a week on a simple crime thriller instead of the usual two days. The new software, which has been in the IT department’s hands since last year, was only, finally, brought to perfect running order on Friday – although that is not certain, as I haven’t had enough time to check out all the functions I need to use as yet. In fact, I spent what would have been my early leisure hours on Friday, when I normally had plans to travel into Bremen and spend the evening with friends, adjusting work that should have been completed in January and February so that it can be completed this coming week. Added to the frustration of having the Team Leader complain that I had done work he assigned me, and then feeling the need to sleep on the bus home before climbing straight into bed and sleeping through the weekend – which I did not do, I hasten to add – it has been something akin to depressing.

Those books which I have read, though, have been enjoyable. I haven’t felt the desire to stop reading a boring or pointless book for quite a while, or to throw a book into the corner because it is filled with mistakes – factual or spelling. But, time allowing, I have been concentrating on fairly easy reading, without wishing to denigrate the various authors in any way. At the moment I am wandering through the seventh Chief Inspector Gramache tale from Louis Penny – where another murder takes place in the small village of Three Pines, and the same villagers are suspects in the case as always. The telling of the tale is always amusing, with plenty of sidelines and parallel stories, otherwise it would be a worthless task, trying to decide who is to be murdered, and who is to be the murderer from a limited character list. Prior to that I read a Scandinavian tale by Viveca Sten, with the usual detective who has personal problems they are trying to get away from, but still takes on a new case and battles through it all. Different in this case, as it is the first in a new series, from an author who has already completed ten other books in a detective series, and the heroine – for it is She – is not really on the case at all, but called in to help towards the end. Once I’ve finished the Canadian tale, I shall move on to a classic by Josephine Tey, the 1951 classic The Daughter of Time which, according to the jacket blurb, has been voted the best British crime novel of all time.

What with packing all my books and other possessions, or starting to think about packing, I’m having to be careful about which books I buy now. It would be a travesty if I bought a few titles, packed them away for a move, and then found them again in ten years time or, worse still, bought them again. And ten years is not that bad an estimate: I have books I haven’t seen since I bought this house about eighteen years ago, as they are still in their own packing boxes. Books I have read, I hasten to add. Now I am faced with a similar situation, and far more packing boxes than last time. But, since I plan on this being my last move ever, it should be fine.

Late in the evening now, all my laundry is done, the housework finished,this letter draws to a close, and it is time to prepare my evening meal. Cottage pie today, which is one of my Sunday favourites, and is usually large enough to last me three meals. There are advantages and disadvantages to living alone: advantage is the peace and quiet, the freedom to do whatever you want without having to answer to another. The disadvantage is that food, when bought to be cooked at home, is never in well-priced single portions. You buy pre-packed, and it is enough for three people. You buy unpacked – such as with potatoes and vegetables, fruit and so on – and it costs more. So I’m almost always either gorging myself, or freezing up a good sized portion of my meal for another day. The advantages, believe me, outweigh the disadvantages a thousand to one.