Dolly's blog: All change.

"September may normally be the season of mellow fruitfulness and a nice new coat, but this year it was carnage.

Within a handful of weeks our middle child started boarding school (which still feels like an amputation but so far so good...), Mr D started a new job, my uncle died, we welcomed a new niece and nephew to the family and a new au pair to our world of chaos. And in the middle of all this we had to move house. The calmest port in this storm was me, which wasn't saying much.

I've met some army wives who insist on doing their own packing and spend days cleaning the house to military march-out standards. I am not one of these people. It's not great thinking about strangers packing up my personal possessions and discovering the true horror of what lies beneath my daughter's bed, where putrid knickers go to die and dusty boxes of loom bands disgorge themselves. But needs must. I have other fish to fry - like working out how to fit all our furniture into a house that is quite literally half the size of the last one.

For removal day one I used the "It makes no sense both of us taking holiday" excuse and escaped to work. Reality hit when I got home that night to find my six year old sat on the windowsill watching telly, the au pair having bagsied the inflatable gym ball and these being the only things left to sit on. The removal men had flooded the upstairs loo, resulting in an interesting fishbowl effect in the light fitting of the downstairs loo immediately underneath. "Is it safe?!" we asked the emergency electrician. "Well, it should be ok for tonight" the not-at-all-comforting reply.

There were unexpected stress victims. It turns out my husband finds moving house really unsettling, which is a bit like a sailor getting seasick. Worse was the dog, who exploded all over the carpet in both the old and new houses. In fairness he was right to be concerned; we'd booked ourselves into a hotel for night 2 but completely forgotten they don't take dogs.

The low point of day 3 was when we assembled a bunk bed the wrong way round in a bedroom only marginally bigger than the bed. Rather than bow to the inevitable and disassemble it, we convinced ourselves that if we got the angles right we could manoeuvre it into position. Half an hour later it was still jack-knifed across the room. "Mummy can we play a game?" asked our youngest, appearing at just the wrong moment. "Not now darling!" I replied cheerfully, teeth gritted, as Mr D did a commando roll across the bed in order to exit the room and take a moment. I would like to take this moment to apologise to the next occupant for the chunk of wood now missing from the mantelpiece.

In the middle of all this I foolishly checked my work emails and saw one from my boss saying please call. "You must be joking!" said my head, whilst my fingers simultaneously dialled the number. Mid-way through day 2 Mr D had to go to the office. Head full of house-move stuff he murmured vaguely as he walked off that he might be late back because "The PM's visiting", this clearly featuring lower than dismantling the sofas in his mental priority list for the day.

My 8 year old worked out that this is the sixth house he's lived in - hence boarding school. "I bet you're used to it by now!" say well-meaning friends. Try telling that to the dog."

After 19 years of fee earning, Dolly now works in a management role in a London law firm.  Working four days a week she has three children aged 5 to 9, a wonderful (though often absent) husband and a charismatic dog who keeps her sane.