Today our job is to pick up every single individual item we own, decide what pile to put it in, and either give it away, send it back to LA in a suitcase, or keep it. We're about half done. I'm exhausted, the house is a wreck, and I leave for LA tomorrow morning, while Bob carries on by himself. 

We're giving LOADS away to charity shops: extra electronic stuff, UK electrical adaptors, winter clothes bought from other charity shops six months ago, markers and notepads and little plastic toys from cereal boxes, maps to places we've already been, book we've already read...

We all have our own way of dealing with the paring down. Eleanor has been giving things away to friends. It helps her say goodbye. She's got piles for Roonagh and piles for Ayla. It's very sweet, but she still doesn't understand how little space we have. She's asking what kind of toy I'll bring her back from LA.

I am sending home all my winter things: boots, coats, and sweaters, and also clearing out any extras. I'm feeling a bit naked in the process, but also really delighted to be lightening the load. It's hard to know what I need to have, since I don't know where I'm going. Hmmm... I think there may be a metaphor somewhere in there.

Bob keeps making different piles of cables and equipment, muttering "redundancy, redundancy," and trying to figure out if he's worn a sweater enough times to warrant the fact that he bought it in the first place, using a complicated system involving dividing the number of times worn by the price paid.

Owen, given the choice, would fill his suitcase with books, and wear the same clothes every day. We're in negotiations. I keep reminding him that we do have the Kindle, but he's desperate to keep the pile of mangled Manga books that Babysitter Ben gave him before we left home 8 months ago. He sat for an hour this morning staring at about two dozen paperbacks laid out on the floor in front of him, and finally burst into tears, deciding that he wanted to just quit traveling and go home. NOW!

We had a family pow-wow, there on the living-room floor. Being sad about leaving somewhere is an unavoidable part of our journey. Sometimes it's just a bit too hard, and having a family Sad Session is the only thing to do. It generally doesn't last too long, and we're all better for sharing the moment.

In a few weeks we'll be in France, and no one will miss the things they've left behind. The people are a different story. We hope to keep in touch with our new friends, and to help the kids to do the same. Thank goodness for the internet!

When we leave France we'll probably go through it all again to some extent. And that's OK. The hard comes with the good. I think that paths that are important, and fulfilling, are often quite difficult as well. It's life. We're living it.

We've just booked seven weeks in a little town in the south of France called Saint Quentin la Poterie. I am the luckiest girl in the Whole Wide World. We got a good

Another, even older woman from the booth next over says to the guy coming in, "Do you always wear a helmet when you cycle, Casey?"

"Yeah," he said, to which she responded

• The Marie Curie Cancer Care charity shop (that's a tongue twister), to give away some clothes that the kids have outgrown. 
• The Post Office to mail postcards. From Paris. Sorry everybody!
• Just Sew, to have them sew new buttons onto my black coat. It's old old old, and in the past two months all the buttons have fallen off but one. I've

We met Robert the Guard when Ella realized that she'd left her hat

Thanks for being here. We can't tell you how amazed and delighted we are that you come around from time to time. 

We're calling in a solid. Part of our master plan to take over the universe involves having a website that has an overwhelming and exploding population. It also would really help us get a publisher interested. So we're asking you to tell a few friends about us. Send a quick email. Drop our name at lunch, or dinner. Maybe at lunch and dinner, providing you're having those two meals with different people.

Or, if you're a rabid fan, you could host a What! You Don't Know About This Fabulous Site Yet?!? party and invite a few hundred close

"Why do we still have groszy?

"Just put it on the desk." 

She came back a few minutes later, "I can't figure out this one."

"Oh - that's a Swiss Franc. Put it with the zloty."

She came back with some Serbian dinar, and a little later with two big silver coins. "What are they. They look the same on one side, but not on the other side. I don't think they're the same."

"They are the same," I said. "They're both quarters. You know - American money"

What on earth are we doing to our children?!

On the bright side, Eleanor can make change in several different countries.

Brenna and Bob at the Golden Reels last year. Note the lack of shiny statue.

For those of you who don't work in post production sound, and might be wondering what the day-to-day activities of a sound editor really look like -- It's, frighteningly, a lot like this video!

William IV was the 3rd son of King George III, and no one ever expected him to be king. But between one thing and another, king he became, when he was 69, and he reigned for 7 years. His biggest historical claim is probably that he managed to stay alive until his niece, Victoria, reached the age of 18, and so could become queen without her mother being queen's regent. Queen Victoria did pretty well for the Monarchy.

Money seems not to have been William's friend. In face, when Parliament - faced with the prospect of no heir to the throne, offered to pay off all of William's debts if he would leave his mistress of 20 years (and their 10 children) to marry