I drove a 450-mile round trip to Reading one day this week to check out another room. It's a nice place and I'll find out out Monday whether I've got the room, although my instincts are overwhelmingly telling me that I'm not going to get it. There's two other places that look like good candidates, and at the start of next week I'll be making arrangements to go and view them too.

I've definitely started to feel a bit more like my normal self this week. I'm still taking steps forwards and backwards at various points, but I'm definitely getting there.

Saying that, I feel like I've taken one of those backwards steps today. As I sit here, languishing in the flat on my own on a dark and wet Friday night, my mind is elsewhere. Hopefully it'll be a good weekend and maybe - just maybe - next week I'll finally find my new living quarters and can set a date for my move. Wish me luck!

A positive update this week.

I received a very interesting offer of somewhere to stay in Reading from a friend towards the end of last week. I spent the weekend thinking about this and the other room that I was waiting on hearing about, and I decided that I ought to look around a few more places before making any decisions.

I got back in touch with the woman whose flat I'd viewed originally to let her know what I was doing, and she'd said that she'd offered the room to someone else. It's fair enough, and I feel a little relieved - perhaps that place wasn't the right one for me. I feel a lot more positive about things than this time last week, and I'm going to take a look at a few more places just as soon as I can arrange viewings. I'm determined now to find the right place, rather than just take the first thing that comes along.

Whilst I am busy trying to get moved to Reading, the fact that I've not been there for ten days now seems to be responsible for my outlook brightening a little for the first time in a while. I'm still looking forward to moving, but being stable in Leeds for the last few weeks has helped me deal with things.

There's still a lot to deal with and things I need to sort out, but I get the feeling that I'm travelling on the right path.

Gone

Remembering the things we said to each other
All the exciting things we'd do together
I can't help myself but recall them
I can't get my head around living without them

The many things that we could do
The music we would sing to
The times together we would spend
All forgotten, somehow, in the end

The horrible feelings have, at least, gone away
But an empty feeling is growing stronger inside me everyday
I want to move forward, and smile again
But there's no point to anything now, compared to then

Call it drama, tell me to move on
But I saw something special inside me and now it has gone
All I hope is that I find it again one day
And that when I do, it's there to stay

I feel like I'm trapped inside my own little personal soap opera at the moment.

I have written previously about moving to Reading and, about a year after first giving it some genuine thought, it now looks very likely that I will be living there very shortly after five long years living in Leeds. I decided back in June that I wanted to do it and, after putting the wheels in motion in July, everything is now sorted out on the work side of things. I started looking for somewhere to live last weekend, viewed a place on Thursday night and then confirmed my intent to move in the following day. Tomorrow I'll find out whether I'll be moving in - if I do, I'll be there by the start of October.

All very well, but there probably could not be a worse time for me to move.

A few weeks ago now, I somehow managed to part ways with someone that I met one strange day in July and started seeing shortly afterwards. Our circumstances both suiting it perfectly, before we embarked upon our short relationship we had agreed to rent a place together in Reading later in the year. As the relationship came to end, this plan was burnt and my non-existent Plan B was put into action.

Whilst I can retrospectively question the other ideas we had and things we decided to do, deciding to get a place together in the first instance was definitely a really great idea. In the knowledge that it would have been such fun, and with the greatest respect to whoever I'm going to live with in Reading, nowhere is likely to get anywhere near to meeting the potential that existed before.

Whilst I should be really excited about a move that I have been wanting for so long now, I'm not.

Other factors are also contributing more than their fair share, of course. I know it's a knackered-out cliche, but from the moment we split I've been on this crazy rollercoaster ride. One day I'm absolutely alright, the next day I'm low. I have so many new feelings and thoughts going through my head that I've never had to confront before (as well as some sadly familiar ones), and it clearly going to take me time. A big personal change like moving to Reading is hardly wise in those circumstances.

Then there's the obvious fact that my now ex-girlfriend is going to be in the same town as me. 'Out of sight, out of mind' clearly isn't the case in this situation, but moving so quickly to the place where I'll see her everyday doesn't sound particularly wise, does it?

There are positives to my move that could help me deal with my current problems, but I think there's a risk that the timing is not right. I can't realistically delay the move - if I don't move soon, I won't be able to move at all. Not moving is not an option. So it is that I move now.

How will things turn out? Tune in next time.