Resettlement jetlag

As anyone who has spent a lot of time not living anywhere in particular will have found, when you get "home" you're at a loose end. You don't know where things are in your house, sometimes you don't know where your house is. You forget codes and pin numbers and instructions for every day items.

Your house doesn't feel right or look right. You feel compelled to do all those odd jobs you once wanted to do, but didn't (like painting the kitchen cupboards and finding bathroom storage to fit). You unpack and re-pack, storage and luggage. You find things, lose things, remember things, forget others. Did I really own that? But where is my... ?

You don't sleep at the right times, even if you only cross a small time zone. You don't change your phone times immediately which confuses you further. You hesitate to leave the house, or you leave it immediately to spend time at local watering holes.

You are awake at 2455h (what is that time, 0055?) by your watch, 2252h by the laptop (UK time) and 2354h by the phone (Swedish time) on a blog posting at Pacific Standard Time (what is that anyway?) conscious of having a phone conference with a client at 1600h (Western) Australian time.

You start browswing the Ikea catalogue and find ridiculous pieces of furniture in the children's section (see pictured) which you think will work in your bathroom (of course, I think they will work, it's one am). You get hungry for ridiculous food and walk around with a tape measure round your neck and piles of unfinished things to unpack and unsort that you should have left in the storage boxes and bags.

Then you quite dramatically go to bed leaving everything unfinished, half your food lying around and debris everywhere. I have moved house more than 46 times, and I never went to sleep until everything was unpacked or opened and in it's right room. Now I only have 17.5 sqm to sort out, it's a organisational nightmare, and I am content to leave it a week, so that it sorts itself out as I sort out my head.

Now what day is it, what time is it, and what country are we in... ?