Tulitha King

Tag: Family Life

  • Mulberries

    The Mulberries are in season in Young and we have been gorging ourselves daily. I can never understand those fad diets that exclude fruit. I mean…look at this! A tree bursting with fruit just cries out to be eaten. It is just plain common sense. I have been a fruit eater all my life and fruit is good. I have a healthy appreciation for all things fruit. Mm, Yum.

    Eating fruit straight from the tree is a simple pleasure that is one of life’s luxuries. I am so thankful to my in-laws for planting these rows of fruit trees, they had a thought to the future and we are the benefactors.

    This was a happy moment in our day, the kind of moment I relish as a family. I love being together but not…if you know what I mean. We are together enjoying some things, say the outdoors, the weather, food but we are also separately, happily interdependently, enjoying our own things. Sophia munching mulberries, Gunther having an outside bath and hubby and I watching and delighting/working on the bus. All happy, all together, but also enjoying the world around us, the kids gaining independence and learning to enjoy their own company, which is so important.

    On the bus side of things we have made much tangible progress. Three bathroom walls are in, still wrapped in plastic (we can’t wait for the great unveiling and hope the colours all work together), and not shown here, one of the kid’s bunk walls are in along with the bottom bunk’s framing.

    ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

  • Drawing Together

    Being a sick mummy, with sick kiddies I got out of mum’s house for a lie down on the oval.

    Canberra week0009 Canberra week0010A fruit picnic, organised by Sophia,Canberra week0011

    Canberra week0012

    Was followed by some drawing.Canberra week0013

    Here is moi, complete with 10 finger and 10 toes…and a belly button. She made sure to get my ‘straight’ hair right, and there are rain drops over my head.Canberra week0014 Canberra week0015

    Here is Gunny with his characteristically wild hair.Canberra week0016

    And an accidental selfie which I am including because not many photos of me make it onto the blog – that’s called being a mum for you.

  • These days

    Last week was a very tiring one. I won’t say ‘the most tiring of my life’ because that would not necessarily be true.  There are many momentous moments in life and ones that tucker you out more than moving house like having a new baby – or for that matter just being pregnant, starting a new job, travelling away from home or organising a wedding, but the thing about moving house is that there is very little that is pleasant about it. Sure, perhaps the only good thing is that new house, but it’s just another house. You’ve just changed houses. In our case it’s not yet even another house (or bus, let’s just say), though it is extremely nice to be living in this large house on this large property in rural NSW.  The aftermath of moving follows you like a stray dog.  That final house inspection, changing addresses with thirty-odd interested parties & unpacking those boxes. I still can’t quite believe that that house I’ve known for so long, those couches, that home of my children’s first years is mine no longer! (Not that it ever truly was.)

    With routine and rhythm thrown out the car window as we drove off into the sunset we are facing a varied reality.

    Time at mum & dads was brief as we were out at Sutton every day for five days packing and cleaning. Thankfully I managed to spend a bit of time walking with the kids in the bush and on the oval of my youth.

    ImageImage

    Mum was so good to watch my kids, with no complaints as ever, but by the end she was exhausted. I don’t know if I could’ve done it without that patient help.

    Image

     We passed this guy as we walked down to the oval.  I was struck by his presence as I realised that this fellow, selling ‘fresh flowers’, has been here in his van – possibly even the same van! – every day since I can remember – 20 odd years! It is an anomaly in this day of fast changing, fast paced, high profile, ambitious careers. I was struck and I was also thankful.  It is so nice to have something that remains steady and unchanging – even if just for one lifetime.

    The end of the week came, house inspection over, I took the kids to see our old house on the way out of town for closure’s sake, and as we headed out we literally drove off into the sunset.

    It sunk into me and I thought:

    ‘This feels good. This is right. This is what we need right now.’

    Image

     Though it is somewhat bittersweet, with relationships I will miss, people I will long for. I still feel that for me, for my family, this is the logical, natural and proper course forward for us.

    I drove away and I felt the walls fall off my life.