A great clearance has been achieved with the packing and removal of Edmund's regular everyday clothes, most of which went to Goodwill. "Weekend wear" (jeans etc) and gym gear (with no sweat stains and all their buttons) went into the regular stream, and office-worthy clothes and shoes went to a program called ClothingWorks that distributes the garments to people who need better clothes than they can afford, either to get work or to get better work.

All that's left is formal wear, such as his kilt and doublet and his mess dress uniform, and a couple of sentimentally important items that no one else would want, such as the embroidered jean jacket he brought home from Afghanistan and wore All.The.Time.

Oh, and winter boots, of which he had many. Those I will pack up and deliver to Goodwill this week.

I'm sleeping a bit better. Still waking up at zero dark awful, but now dropping off again and waking for the day at about the normal time, which is, of course, cat o'clock.

I also secured a promise of skilled moving assistance when it's time to shift all the bookcases. Ron the furniture restorer and his antique dealer brother Tim agreed to do it (for a price), and, after seeing them haul out a very large walnut chest of drawers, I know they will do it right. One bookcase in particular, a large Victorian walnut number with glass doors, will require shoe horns and lubricant to extract it from the study; I never should have had it moved upstairs in the first place. The chest of drawers? Huge Victorian number from my great-grandfather's house in Beauport, desperately in need of rehab for splits and cracks, and the little bites out of the top finish where Edmund chucked his brass-buckled army-issue belt every damn' day for nearly 20 years.

Today I shall call Habitat for Humanity and arrange for the removal of half a dozen pieces of furniture that are excess to requirements: Edmund's computer desk, which is too high for me, and filing cabinets; at least one IKEA bookcase; and a futon sofa that converts to a queen-size bed. The futon was Edmund's bed before we got married, and we replaced the mattress and used it for a living room sofa in Ottawa. Here, it did not fit into the sitting room and we didn't need it for anything else, so it has been taking up space in the basement. No more of that.

I weighed myself this morning and found that I am down 6.5 kilos (a hair under 14.5 pounds) from 15 September. At this rate, last winter's jeans will be comfortably loose by the time the snow flies.