Moving

We're moving.

Yep, moving. In about 3 weeks time, our beautiful little house on our half acre block, with the beautiful old trees and the garden we've been lovingly pouring our hearts and souls into, will no longer be our home. We're going back, but hopefully forward. Back to my old home, in my old town. Where I met Charles and where we played and had fun and pottered and grew vegetables in a small backyard, with neighbours over very close fences.

We have been considering this decision for so, so long. I think the minute we knew I was pregnant we thought we would need to move. It's no place to be having a family, miles from services such as doctors and hospitals. But we stayed. Then when we were deciding on where to actually have the baby, we were adamant that we would have to move, to find the birthing outcome that we wanted. But we stayed, and found a suitable option in the nearest town. We have considered moving to be close to a Steiner school/playgroup, but when we looked closely, we realised Steiner was not for us. So we stayed. We decided to move to Brisbane, for warm weather and study options and good mountain bike trails. But we stayed put [turns out we like the cold more than we thought].

And then in one day, after so very many months to being indecisive, we decided. We need to move. And so we're moving.

It's one of those decisions that is both painful and uplifting at the same time. We have invested so much in this home, not just financially, but with our labour and our sweat and all our hard work. We're only just scratching the surface of what we wanted to achieve here. But things have changed. Whereas once we had full days to work in the garden, now we have full days of caring for a baby, of washing nappies and clothes, of just barely keeping on top of life. Precious hours get spent running to get jobs done in the garden, but we're only just keeping up, and we're not getting ahead. And we're not spending those hours with our baby boy. We have decided to reduce the time spent on maintaining this property, and move to a smaller place, with a smaller vegie garden, and a lovely patch of lawn that is perfect for a toddler.

There are so many positives in this move for us. We're going to a bigger town, but it's still a town. We can walk into town, rather than driving for half an hour to a town from our current home. We can walk to the library, and to playgroups, and to the shops, and to a pretty lake, and to parks for when William is old enough to play on the equipment. We can go out to dinner again, at the nicely re-done old pub, and the Indian place, or get take away from the noodle bar. We can walk to the cafe where we had our first date, and enjoy lunch there, our little family. There are mountain bike trails, and other mountain bikers, and there is a lovely gentle place where we can teach William how to ride a mountain bike [he will be a mountain biker, trust me..]. There is that pilates class I used to go, and a farmers market close by, and a doting grandmother 10 minutes away.

So yeah, we've conceded that at this point in our lives, moving back into town life is the way forward. It isn't forever. Our plan has always been, and still is, to buy a large enough block of land to keep some horses, and have an extensive vegetable garden, and fruit trees, and build a sustainable strawbale house to suit our lifestyle. But for now, we're making life as easy as we can for ourselves, and focusing on baby raising. And small vegetable gardening. And living as naturally and sustainably as we can. We're pretty sure we'll be able to take those chickens with us. Except for George... I don't think he can come. So there's plenty of loose ends to be tidied up, but the decision has finally been made. We're moving. And I won't be living on a dusty country road any more. Do you think I need to change my blog title? 

Orange pants. It was definitely an orange pants kind of day.