Just before moving out I managed to squeeze in a birthday party for Sophia. I don’t know if I was slightly crazy to do this. It sure was busy!
Pictures tell many words and my brain is only halfway functional, so here’s the story:
And a false start to filming Sophias end of term dance. This picture actually gives a very good impression of what this performance was like. My parents and I were crying with quiet laughter. Sophia got way into it. Good for her.
We have a ‘pet’ possum who lives in our roof. Every now and then she thunders across our ceiling or over our roof. There is a tree right up against our house and it forms a bridge to the plum tree at our fence. That is where she feasts every night on plum leaves and whatever she can find on the lawn. We toss our apple cores under the tree and I guess she picks them up. Actually, there are two. A mummy and a baby. I’m not sure if baby has grown up and left home, and I’m not sure if our visitor the other night was mum or bub, but it was one of them.
And actually, on thoughts, it might be that baby as Henry has been feeding it out of his hand since he was able to toddle away from his mummy months ago. And we fed this one.
He also weed our food – after we had eaten it all. It was perfect timing actually – if being weed on can be thought of like that. Pete and Jen had just taken the last bun and filled it with the Philly Cheese Steak filling, noone was sitting at the table at this point and then down came a shower! We couldn’t eat any more of that Cheese Steak, but there wasn’t much there, and when you have dogs and chooks food is rarely wasted – especially steak. Chester was pleased!
Speaking of chooks. We have them no more. We were oh so sad to see our lovely chickens off to Pete and Jens new place this night. They are the loveliest chickens I’ve ever had. We are only happy because we have sent them to a good home. We are very happy about that.
Today is full of cleaning blinds, flyscreens, bathroom and prepping for Sophias party. Goals. Wish me luck!
Even though we are having a PINK party, she is dead set on a Merry-Go-Round cake, and so, thanks to Canon Creative Park, I am making a paper merry go round for the top. This week is not the week for complicated cake decorating! I just hope I get it all done. If I get off the internet now I guess I will! Farewell.
If things go quiet, you will know that I am caught up with the move.
xo
It’s been fairly quiet, with hubby out working and many little things to do. Gradual de-cluttering (it is hard letting go of stuff isn’t it, but it sure does feel liberating when you do! – evidence of a slowly changing awareness.), cleaning, writing, studying, teaching (kiddies), walking, playing, party planning cooking, all that…and, oh, catching up with the dearest of friends who have come back to Canberra. That has been wonderfully refreshing.
I was sad not to take pictures of the mid morning – stretching into mid afternoon – ‘brunch’ we had with these friends. It was such a precious time with us four couples who so naturally and sweetly slot together, whose children play very well together, who so comfortably talk about anything with no judgement, but perhaps a bit of laughing at ourselves and at each other, which friends are so good for, all of it couched in love.
I’ve found I’ve grown the most through these committed, loving, natural friendships where the stretch is gentle and self-awakening. And so I assume, by being involved in these most beautiful of friendships the growth occurs all around, and my only hope is that everyone has wonderful friends like I do.
That was Easter Friday.
Today we are couching it in, the kids are having a video day. I’ve been making sure not to give them any TV time except when needed and so we intentionally go days without any videos, so that I can give them a big sit in with some fun videos without any guilt!!
Here’s a glimpse through our week, showing you how we got to this day where we are going to sit on our bottoms all day and r e s t.
It started with this beautiful ringlet on this beautiful forehead. 
We dropped their daddy off at the Governor General House open day to work, and we ducked next doorish to my Nonnas house with their Nonna (my mum) and went for a walk through ‘the forest’. Autumnal colours are just beginning to emerge.
Sophia, of course, found a tree to climb.
And daddy found them.
I’ve started my early morning running up again. Now that the weather has cooled off, and my favourite fogs and sharp, crisp morning air are back to greet me in the morning, it is something I anticipate and savour. The earliest mornings are the best of times.
And the Folk Festival. It’s an annual family event. The boys band played. I spent a bit of time chasing kids around – meaning: no pictures, sadly. I took a few afterwards when Henry was free to help. He has a calming influence on the children, I don’t know what I’d do without him sometimes.
Gunther tried his hand at ‘daddys work’. We have a picture of Sophia doing this at the Folk Festival four years ago. She was five days old.
Look at her today. We tried to join in on the dancing, but Soph was too tired to enjoy it. She was clamouring to go home, which we shortly did.
But not before doing a few essential jumps.
And here we are. Movie day. Thank you very much. I’m ready for this day.
Happy Easter all.
xo
The grapes that you can buy in the supermarket do not even compare to those that I have found on suburban grapevines. Maybe this is because I grew up sampling my Nonnos (Italian: Grandpa) grapes. He made his own wine and had a delightful, fragrant wine cellar under his house. It was always cool and dark down there with instruments of the wine maker neatly installed along the walls, and centre stage a wine press or tub (I think he did it the old-fashioned way! Feet and all, but not sure if I can be sure.) As a result of his wine making there were many absolutely delicious and unusual grape varieties in his backyard. What a lucky little girl I was to be privy to such a gardens fruit!
I am glad to pass the grape sampling tradition on. Surely this is the stuff a happy childhood is made of!
Sorry for the long and dreary absence. I am currently vacuum packing and wandering around wondering what on earth we are taking, tossing or passing on!
Good news on the bus front, it’s all stripped and plans are underway (and almost finalised) for the big transformation. I tell you what, the bus is a gleaming, spaceship of design in my mind, so let’s just hope the transition from brains to brawn is seamless. I have faith in hubby who is very (really, actually, very) clever and has over-thought this to the max, explored practically every single option available and almost knows where every single bolt and screw will be positioned.
We spent a week stripping the dear thing, chiseling away at decades old lino and crumbling, acrylic 70s carpet. Sweaty, covered in itchy, plastic fibres, we finally completed it, sketched out the outline of our home on the plywood floor and started to see the full picture (which changed a number of times). I actually really enjoyed this and it might have birthed a new passion: Renovating and perhaps also: Restoring. I love ‘brainless’ physical work as busy hands free up the brain to daydream distractedly – one of my favourite past times! I have also found that I enjoy talking and spending time with people while doing something useful together. I seem to talk and listen more freely.
That is why there’s been little action here, all the action has taken place in rural NSW on our hot little (rather big, actually) bus.
Pics to come.
Yarrangobilly hides a surprising and rich past. Our family has made this our semi-annual holiday destination for the past five years with good reason. It was once (in the early 20th Century) a premier holiday destination in NSW. I guess that was when people believed thermal pools to hold healing properties and before swimming in the ocean became more mainstream. There have been a variety of owners in this area including a farmer who lived near the river. I really don’t know how he got his cattle in and out of this valley, it’s quite challenging terrain even for a vehicle. The farm is long gone and was superseded by holiday goers who spent time in the still present historic Caves House. It sounds like it was a fun place to come to and was well set up for day visitors, who most likely stayed in the then nearby Yarrangobilly Village, as well as the live-in visitors. There is an old bus shelter with a bell placed in the nearby cliff which summoned people for the trip by cart down the mountain to the pool, a short but slightly taxing journey which must be walked these days. The cord is still able to be pulled and the bell rung, which only adds to the charm of this delightful enclave. Tennis courts were built, now vanished, and the old caves house where we stayed was set up for a communal kind of living arrangement with shared bathrooms and a dining hall, obviously people did not come for privacy!
On a tour around the recently restored two storey section (you can see the scaffolding around that in the picture below), the manager of National Parks was telling us that it is in fact quite a miracle that this historic home wasn’t knocked down like the majority of the houses and villages in the area. When ‘Parks’ took over in the 70s they took the liberty of removing as much trace of man as they could in this wilderness area. And so, driving around the Snowy Mountains, you do in fact pass many places of former settlement: Long Plains, Yarrangobilly Village, Kiandra, they are gone and all but forgotten. Those monuments to times past, which would have enriched this whole landscape with their ode to history (white settlement), have been bulldozed into the dirt, and are now covered by lush alpine vegetation, with nothing but brass plaques to speak for them.
This area is (so far) one of my most favourite places in Australia. There is something about the mountains, their proximity to the clouds, the underground formations they hide, the spectacular wilderness, their particular flora and fauna-including brumbies (who couldn’t love that?). The towns around here are some of my favourites: Talbingo & Tumut being two where I have spent a bit of time. It excites the imagination to imagine this area overrun with immigrant families working on the great Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme from 1949-1974, a great ‘discovery centre‘ for which is in Cooma. The area in fact has a slight European feel to it, and this, surely, is why. I am greatly looking forward to seeing a similar scheme in northern WA, the Ord River Irrigation Scheme.
For the third time we visited the caves and there is no way we are bored of these yet. It is an awe inspiring place, rather damp and refrigerator cold – just the way I like it! – the best way to escape the awful Summer heat.
‘Us girls’ went on a few walks together, even making it twice (two ways) to the lookout which overlooked our house. It seemed impossible to get up there but was actually surprisingly easy & a lovely walk. I will not forget that feeling of being entirely surrounded by the elegant and mysterious Australian Alpine bush for as far as the eye can see. It ought to be normal to be surrounded so by trees, that most necessary, wonderful & supremely useful of creations. It is probably my love of trees that has, in fact, pushed me into studying Sustainable Development.
Then of course there is the pool. A 1.4km walk from the house, down a steep incline and you are faced with an impossibly beautiful turquoise pool. It is fed by a thermal spring so is a constant 27C. We came here every day and so our holiday was full of nature and walking and swimming and board games, good food & laughter.
We’ve just spent almost a week up in the Snowy Mountains with my family. I am feeling so lucky to have been able to do this with absolutely everyone in our family there (except for my sisters boyfriend, sadly). I am currently in disbelief as I can not accept that I can not just laze around a large, breezy house all day with people I love, go for walks, explore caves and swim all together in the pool in the bush. It was a luxury, but somehow it feels more like reality to me.
Family holidays are something we only began after I got married and so in a way they represent to me the link to life as a sibling and child, rather than as a spouse or mum. It is almost a welcome reprieve. A chance to step back, be thankful for all the parts of this connected life – as no one is an island, to see life from both sides of the fence, to realise what it is I want to give my children, to reconcile all areas. It merely is what it is and I am thankful that time spent with my family is always fun, sometimes uncomfortable and ever familiar. Familiarity is a wonderful thing.
I once heard, I think it was from a neighbour actually, something that made me appreciate my siblings all over again. It was that, of everyone you are ever in contact with in your life it is your siblings that will know you the longest. They (sometimes) know you from your birth to your death, or at the very least from your childhood to their death. They are the ones with whom your memories are bonded, irrevocably and delightfully, in that rosy glow of childhood past.
When I see my Nonna (who is in her eighties) talk to her brother (who is in his nineties) and her sisters (all in their eighties) I appreciate it all anew. She is in Australia and they are in Italy, but it is still absolutely vital to her that they all remain in contact, perhaps even more important as they stretch toward their centenaries.
I will post photos of this little holiday soon. It was quite a wonderful one in all its experiences.
Here it is!
Beautiful Big Bedford. It has come in the nick of time, at the perfect time and is exactly what we were looking for. After doing over 3000 kms up and down the south east of Australia (from Taree to Melbourne) in the past week we ended up finding our ideal bus only 15 minutes from Henrys familys place, where we have parked it for all the adjustments we will need to make to get it registered and in running order. In the end we did not compromise on any of the essentials that we wanted which were: Fair price, Bedford, Diesel Engine in good condition, sturdy rust-free body, and minimally fitted out – as we would strip it anyway.
We are not kidding ourselves, this is not the end, only the beginning! There is a lot of work to be done, & still lots of research (though we are pretty informed by now!), finally though, action can be taken. We can begin kitting it out, moving out and moving in.
Apart from repainting the exterior we will also strip the entire interior, except for the framing which divides the main bedroom from the bunk & bathroom area and the kitchen and living area – all of that just so happens to be in the exact spots we were planning on putting them – fancy that! We are going for a clean and neutral look with all of the inbuilt furnishings; light wood floors, beige walls. We are thinking textured wallpaper for some feature areas (the curved part of the roof), most of the character will come from rugs within and the adjustable furnishings. Because it is such a small space it is completely necessary to keep things streamlined, light and bright in there. We are looking forward to buying our own stove and cooktop, LED Lights, solar panels, installing our own plumbing including a composting toilet and Henry has ideas for a passive solar ‘air conditioner’ he is inventing, and basically being able to alter things to be exactly the way that we want them. What a luxury after six+ years of renting!
It’s a lot of fun to be able to do all this debt free within our budget. Though home ownership is sometime in the future for us I am trusting that the time to rustle up the money for that will come. With houses and land so expensive in Australia I feel good about looking outside the box in order to move forward whilst having an adventure at the same time.
Living in a bus will suit our family down to the ground. I watched my children running and jumping around our bus when we brought it home (‘home’ which is now less about ‘where’ and more about ‘who’), and I thought, ‘this suits my kids perfectly!’, with their wild hair, their boundless energy and inquisitiveness.
Sophia shouted ‘Oolevoir’ (Translation: Au revoir) out the window and we really will be saying that in just a few months. But not yet. And not here in this space at least.
One of my Christmas presents to my little girl was a basic sewing kit. I was unsure she would be ready for this, but the packet said 36 months + and so I took the plunge.
Turns out she’s not so ready, but she is ready to learn. So we are using this kit to get her sewing fingers toned and practiced. She is doing well! We do a fraction every day and already over the few days we’ve been going along there is improvement. She is very determined to do it herself which demands a lot of patience from me, but we sit there together every day and I point to where she needs to put the needle and correct her when wrong. She takes it so long as it is her in control (which I guess is fair enough, it is her learning situation after all, not my own, I am there to help and facilitate not dictate!!)
Here’s our progress:
Tulitha King 
