The Return of the Testosterone Imbalance, and Connie's Incompetence at Packing.

Connie and the other interns have found a house, and are moving in this weekend - so it's back to testosterone hell for me as, once she's gone, I shall again be the only woman in the house. No doubt this will cause a dramatic increase in facial hair, and I shall soon be fairground material. I bet good old Kate doesn't have a single stray hair. She's probably been waxed from head to foot, and has a shiny beacon of a botoxed forehead.

Of course, Max and I have been nominated to "help" Connie with the move. Josh has escaped being drafted in, though - as he has gone off to the coast with the boys, to stay at Robbie's parents' beach house. I am trying not to think about the fact that, if David and Susie hadn't been using their holiday cottage, Max and I could have been chilling out there this weekend. Instead, here we are trying to fit what seems like enough stuff to equip three houses into the car.

To add insult to injury, Connie must be the world's most useless packer. She made Max pick up loads of boxes from the supermarket, but God knows why he bothered - she only seems to have used about ten of them, into which she has packed the most random selection of stuff I have ever seen. There is half a ton of make-up loosely scattered inside saucepans and bowls, and her pot plants have been nestled inside her jumpers. There's soil everywhere.

If Connie had taken her time, she might have made a better job of it, but she seemed incapable of any activity while Big Brother was on, and didn't even start packing until about 11:00pm last night. The result is that the bulk of her belongings are in bags. Not bin bags - which would have been embarrassing enough - but bloody carrier bags. Hundreds of them. And Connie is even worse at unloading than she is at packing. When we get to the new house, she stands next to the car, "directing" us - until Max notices and suggests she might like to join in when she's ready.

I start counting how many trips Max and I make to and from the house, but give up fairly quickly. Why is it always impossible to park anywhere near a student house on moving-in day? (Well, actually, I know the answer to this - it's because no student can ever get it together to obtain a parking permit in time for their poor parents to use it during the process of acting like beasts of burden.)

Connie carries only two carrier bags on each of the very few trips she makes. I have seen more dynamic slugs. Then she takes a bag of food into the kitchen, and that is the last we see of her - though we're so busy that we don't miss her for about an hour, at which point we find her sitting at the kichen table with the other interns, all having a really good chat. It's almost 8:00pm now - and the car is still full of stuff.

When I mention this, Connie says that she and the others think it would be nice to go for a drink to get to know each other. She asks Max to lock up when we've finished unloading and to post her keys through the door. A brief hug and a kiss, and off she goes - before I have even started weeping. I cry whenever we take Connie back - but she always stays dry-eyed. You'd think she'd at least pretend to be a bit sad, but she never does. She's just ecstatic to escape from life with Josh. I suppose I can't really blame her.

At least she'll only be about an hour away from us during the coming year - instead of at the opposite side of the country, as has been the case for the previous two years - but it still seems like a very long way to me. The sofa in the shared living room looks comfortable, though. If I ever need to escape, I shall be able to come and visit!

In fact, I'm rather tempted to tell Max to leave me here - but I suppose that's not really an option. I shall be needed at home, to prevent Josh from turning Connie's bedroom into a gym-cum-games room. (I'm pretty sure that Max has sneakily approved this proposal already, though he denies it.) If Max gets made redundant, or I snap and give in my notice, we'll need that room to rent out to a lodger. The latter of these two options currently seems the most likely.