How to pack up and move a family - some tips!

I hope you aren't looking for serious tips here.  I'm not good at those.  The tips below started off trying to be serious but then the lack of proper sleep and lack of chocolate on this train to Preston (long story) interrupted and it might have deteriorated....

1. Get the packers in.  We've never had packers before.  It's always been us wrapping things up, trying to stuff things into boxes and so on.  The packers make it soooo easy.  They come in, drink endless cups of coffee (and then diet coke as it was very hot....unfortunately they didn't quite look like the man from the diet coke advert back when I was young!) and then in a whirl of activity wrap the entire contents of your house in white plastic stuff or place in boxes.  They then load it all into the crate, filling every last nook and cranny, a little like a giant jigsaw.  Brilliant.
2. Don't forget a plastic cup.  For water.  We packed everything up and then found we didn't have anything to drink water from (apart from direct from the tap).
3. Keep the kids away if you can.  Well away. We stayed at some friends (where we had the lovely duck in a tin).  The kids barely slept ("a sleepover mummy?  two sleep overs? I'm overcome with excitement and can't possibly sleep now!") but they left the house when it was still full of their things and didn't see it slowly emptying out to become just a shell, empty of personal effects and the life and laughter we'd filled it with.
4. Don't let anyone find the sharpie, especially not a 2.5 year old with a slight tendency to draw on walls.  It's not good for your stress levels.
5. Hide your jars of particularly nice jam and marmalade in pots and pans.  The packers said we could only take 'dry' products (hence a quick trip to the shop to buy a mass of porridge and Mornflake muesli).  However, I couldn't be parted from my M&D Mango Chutney (yes, I know, coals to Manchester and all that) so we wrapped it up in tea towels and hid it in the casserole dishes!
6. Don't leave the gas meter cupboard key hanging up in the cupboard in a vague attempt to be helpful to the tenants.  The packers packed it.  Result - new task added to list which wasn't quite long enough (?!) - buy a new one.
7. Don't lose the list of telephone numbers you've put together in a fit of uber-organisation - you know, the utility companies, water companies, council tax people etc. After all, you thought that moving out day would be all calm and there would be plenty of time to phone in your meter readings. Surely you wouldn't be on your hands and knees scrubbing away at the floor 2 minutes before the kids are due home from nursery! No, not at all.
8. Don't hire a Mercedes estate to pack your remaining belongings into.  Admittedly we didn't actually hire one, they gave us an 'upgrade'.  I say upgrade, I mean they gave us a car with an amazingly small boot which we then had to pack with far too much stuff (where were those packers when we needed them?) and hence deposited several bags of random stuff with the neighbours who no doubt couldn't decide whether that was helpful (unopened jars of pasta sauce and rapeseed oil) or annoying (half a jar of marmite).
9. Don't leave your daughters learning journey from 3.5 years at nursery on the roof of the car and drive off having seen a dent in the said hire car which sends you into a panic as you have only got the cheapest insurance.  Luckily for us the lovely nursery people picked it all up and put it back together.  So another tip - have some spare thank you cards for the thank yous you haven't planned for!
10. Find a bottle of champagne you've forgotten about at the bottom of the cupboard, open and enjoy.