Stilly, a house move late in life is like bankruptcy in one respect: its progress is achingly slow at first, and then sudden.

This one began at a few minutes past midnight on 10 October 2020, when Edmund died, and kicked into perceptible movement in late January of this year, when I realized that I don’t want to endure another winter on my own in Stratford. In the end, I figure it will have taken up about five years.