We are now in the calm before the storm -- a lull of mental lists of last things to do, bookings and arrangements and filling out of forms, while we soldier through our last month before what I now think of as "La grande dérangement". Okay, nobody's sending us into exile, but upping sticks and heaving ourselves across the province after so many years in the same house definitely feels more than a little deranged right now. Doing it at the peak of tourist season just adds to the general madness.

Stratford is a small town with a huge tourist-dependent summer theatre festival. Consequently, every hotel and bed-and-breakfast in Perth County is booked solid throughout July and August, but the absolute tippy-top of it all is exactly the week when we are moving, which includes the statutory holiday that falls on the first Monday in August. Our relocation benefit entitles us to interim lodging at the federal government per-diem rate, which should be downright lavish and would be in, say, March, but in August it doesn't even come close to covering the cost of a convenient spot where we may lay our downy heads. So we are booked into an almost-crappy motel on the town line, down the road from Staples and Wal-Mart and a substantial drive from anywhere that serves a decent breakfast.

Ottawa is almost as bad. We live downtown, and hoped to find a hotel close to home so we could be on deck at the scene of the crime for as long as possible while packing is going on. No such luck; every hostelry within walking distance of our front door hikes its rates into the stratosphere in summer -- especially this summer, now that the breadless circus of Canada 150 has come to town. So we're booked in at a Travelodge in an east-end industrial park that has lavish parking and locks on the doors and precious little else.

The place where we usually board the cats when we're away from home is likewise unavailable (booked solid since Easter), so the poor little beasts are booked in at a kennel that also caters to dogs. The horror, the horror ... But it was the only place within an hour's drive of Ottawa where I could even get them in, let alone secure desirable quarters for a pair of pampered pussycats who have never been separated for as much as an hour throughout their little lives.

But the lawyers are now talking to each other, and the utility companies have acknowledged our existence, and we have lined up a capable cleaner to blitz the place after our stuff is toted out (I almost don't care how much that costs), and we have booked a U-Haul truck to transport the stuff the movers won't take, so the big stuff is in place. The small stuff -- well, I try not to sweat the small stuff, but it's a continuing challenge.