Eva Bradley: No festivity this boxing day

The banana box is one of life's great unsung heroes. Made and filled in distant lands, it is commissioned with the singular task of transporting tropical fruit from the equator to our local greengrocer.
But while the life cycle of the bog-standard box might come to a conclusion at this point, the banana box is just beginning its journey and, as I prepare to move house for the twelfth time in eight years, I have had reason to reflect on all the good, great and God-awful moments I have shared with banana boxes over my adult life.
At each shift, my feelings towards the banana box oscillate. At the times in life when they have facilitated a forward step and signified the start of an exciting journey both geographically and personally, I have taken great delight in packing my life inside them and emptying it all out at the next destination. Right now, as I open the first lid on yet another batch of boxes, it is because I am closing the lid on a failed part of my past - the beach house I purchased with joy and hope only a year ago is now filled with sad memories and unfulfilled hopes and dreams.
The banana boxes are stacked tall at the door, ready for bearing the weight of all my worldly goods as they are returned to the home I bought on my own four years ago after yet another unscheduled snag in the lifeline. It is some small comfort that while the addresses and those living at them are in a state of constant flux, the boxes remain exactly the same.
Twelve shifts have seen me experience every imaginable state of domestic bliss. From apartments to farms, lifestyle do-ups, villas both colonial and deco, coastal and urban. Even the odd boat, both in dry dock and on the high seas. With foundations and without, it seems I have been there, lived in that, and to be honest I've just about had enough.
A few moves back I picked out a removal company called Angels from the Yellow Pages, chiefly because the name seemed like just what I needed at such a stressful time of life, and I'm using them again because I love the contradiction between my own personal idea of what an angel is and the muscle-bound reality which is a cross between Jonah Lomu and Homer Simpson (although every bit as heaven-sent as those with halos and wings).
Like every other shift, the number of boxes needed to facilitate it has increased to reflect the addition of new china in the kitchen, new shoes in the wardrobe and new photo frames with new memories - some good, some bad and some that leave me speechless, with the exception of acronyms such as "OMG, WTF?".
This time the shift is backwards in some ways, because it is a return from whence I came, but this comes with the huge advantage of knowing exactly where I want everything and putting it back without compromise.
Pretty floral prints, unnecessary but pleasing knick-knacks and an abundance of nail polish, hair ties and moisturisers can live in unchallenged harmony along with a fridge filled with nothing but sauvignon blanc and salad.
So as I tape up the very first banana box of the rest of my life, it is with a mixture of regret, relief and anticipation. In a few days, the box will be unloaded in my new-but-old home.
It is impossible to say what shifts await me in the future and whether they will be propelled by happiness or despair, but one thing is certain ... the banana box will be there, same as ever, getting me and my material life safely from one harbour to the next and, in this case, back again.