Everything you need

Some friends of our friend Dan are moving closer to Chichester this week.  And we are all very pleased. For a long time they have been driving miles just to come for dinner or go out for a drink. Now, at last, they will be close by and we will see them more often. 
" Well," we asked Dan when we met him last week, " how are their moving plans going?"
Dan grinned.
" Good," he said, " all the paperwork is done.  They're moving next Friday." 
" And have they got everything?" I asked.
Dan took a sip of his drink.
" Oh I think so," he said. " They're very excited. They've been buying things for weeks. So far they've bought an untreated wooden bench riddled with wood worm, an American window that isn't a window, a vintage pencil sharpener and a gramophone that only plays 78s. So they should have everything they need."

We laughed and ordered some nachos while we planned the first party at our friends' house.  
But it made me remember my very first night in my very own flat. 
It was a beautiful flat by the canal in Kings Cross, London. It had a huge arched window and the generic magnolia coloured walls and brown carpets that come with most modern flats. I sat on the floor of the living room that first night, surveying my kingdom and my possessions proudly.  Like our friends, moving to Chichester, I had acquired the things I believed were truly important: a coffee machine, my old red futon, a pen and notepad, a fish tank with 5 fish and a picture called The Gods' Bathroom given to me by my friends on my 21st birthday.

Everything I needed to make my new home mine.
Over time you acquire all the things for day-to-day living: peelers, graters, plates, saucepans, a hoover, chairs.....But when you first move somewhere that belongs to just you, that's not what you are thinking about. You are not worrying about whether you have enough knives and forks or cleaning materials, instead you sit and dream of how you will make it yours. 
And those first few things you bring with you are important not because they are useful or just what you need. 
They are important because they are an extension of yourself, the very essence of you. And as you scatter them carefully through empty rooms, an impersonal, empty house becomes your home.

When Mia was 10 days old, she and I joined Ninesh to start our new life in Switzerland. I hadn't seen the flat and when we arrived everything was in total chaos. 
Boxes everywhere, clothes piled in a heap in the corner of the bedroom, a camping mat and sleeping bag on the floor. 
But in the middle of the living room, carefully set up, was Ninesh's record player and sitting next to it was Ninesh, putting all his vinyl records in alphabetical order.

In my arms, the tiny Mia wriggled and opened her big, dark eyes.
NInesh took her from me and hugging her tight, introduced her to his record collection.
And  suddenly an anonymous, rental flat in a strange new country had become friendly and familiar because it had just become our home.

At least, when our friends move into their new home next Friday, we will always have somewhere to go when our pencils need sharpening.