First Queensland Post as a resident of the Sunny State: Feb 2013

Just to confuse you (but mostly because I am a mere tadpole in the Great Blogging Pool, this post was written in February 2013, but is only now being posted as I am working out how to use Blogger.  Just for ease of understanding, further on down the Great Wall of Blogg! .....read on....please...

This is my first ever blog, and I am going to find my way (probably very slowly I suspect!)  Those that persist with reading it may find something of value in there, although I'm not sure when.  OK, I like to muck around a bit (but now puts on serious writer's gaze).

I am an ex Victorian single parent of one teenager.  A very recent ex Victorian, I might add, like less than four weeks ago.  What took me about 11 years of yearning and dreaming eventually took about 7 months to finally pull together and make it happen.

I thought I would start this tale by posting an excerpt from my journal dated back in July 2012, where I finally decided I'd spent my last cold drizzly birthday in Melbourne, and my next one was going to be frolicking in the surf in Noosa.  This extract is how I attempted to sell the idea to my then 12 year old daughter.  Well, I guess it worked, although as she pointed out recently, "Er Mum, it's not EXACTLY like what you wrote, is it?"
My answer?  "No, honey... it's better."

That extract follows thus:

Ah, Queensland.  Well, ah specifically Noosa.  Despite my fondness for Coolangatta, it still can’t compare with the incomparable.  Nor does anywhere else for that matter.  Oh yes, there are more exciting places, there are probably better, less crowded beaches, there are surely better shops, there are places way easier and cheaper to get to.  But as the place I long for, Noosa always wins, and I suspect, always will.
I’d like to visit again in a few weeks time.  It’s funny, this business of visiting, and it’s usually on my ownsome.  I then catch up with a friend or two up there, but still spend a lot of time there on my own, just walking, swimming, eating, sunning, and lately, cycling.  Revisiting familiar haunts, soothed by that reliably warm sun, drinking in the beauty of the Biosphere.  Oh yes, it is now called the Biosphere.  I love it!  My lovely wanky Biosphere.  It can call itself whatever it wants, but that place is my love, my soul place, my peace, my home.
What I wish I could do though, is NOT come back.  To LIVE there, so that every day I can wake up there, and NEVER have to go back to dreary grey Melbourne with its millions of heads scurrying around like ants, where even in a city of millions one can feel so desperately alone. So that I can have friends up there where we meet for a walk and a cup of froth in the mornings, or a swim whilst the day is so fresh and sparkling, at the sort of time of day when the Melburnians are still trying to poke a cold nose out from under their doonas to gaze at the dark sky outside.
After my walk or swim or surf or whatever, followed by my cappuccino from the Beach Bakery of course, it’s then time to mosey back home, possibly to get Nic off to school, or possibly to start work, whichever way I do it.  The house will be breezy and open and light; all those walls will be painted plantation white, and with the terracotta floors and the timber blinds it feels a bit like you’re in Tuscany, especially with all those crazy bouganvilleas and frangipanis scenting and blazing all around the place, and the palms nodding in the sunshine, lush green against that blazing blue sky.
The kitchen window is wide open on its struts to let the afternoon sun in when it comes, and the pool beyond is blue and clear and so inviting.  I will be in that before too much longer.  I clean up the kitchen a bit.  The kitchen is fairly basic, just a straight kitchen with nice light stone colored benchtops, but pride of place sits a big gas cooktop, it looks like a Blanco, because gas is the only way to cook.  It shares its lifeline with the gas BBQ outside which also has its little outdoor kitchenette space overlooking the pool.
Once I’ve tidied a bit, I put on a load of washing, and a bit of cool music, and then grab another cuppa to sit out on the front verandah which is awash with that morning sun.  I grab my latest copy of Noosa News to flick through, and though there’s a bit of traffic noise, I hardly notice it.  People walk past now and then; the hospital is just across the road, and there’s some comings and goings, mostly older people, always with a smile to see me sitting there.  I smile and call out hello back.  Our crazy sausage dog (Bella?) hangs with me, but goes up to the fence now and then to check out the passersby.
I can’t believe I/we own a sausage dog.  But Nic wanted one, and here we can have whatever we like.  Bella goes wherever she wants, inside or outside, and usually hangs out in the garage with me during the day while I work, but I swear she can tell the time, because she always knows which bus Nic is going to arrive on, and there she’ll be, waiting at the gate in all her doggy excitement, and Nic will be smiling way before she gets to the gate, at that crazy doggy of hers grinning so widely to see her.
We have a pussycat too, its name is Mooch, because it is such a mooch, always getting tangled up in our legs, or snoozing on window sills or beds.  It leads a privileged life, does Mooch, and sometimes isn’t sighted for hours, unless you make a sound in the kitchen, and then Mooch’s radar points her our way.  She was a stray, and now I guess she’s ours.
I’ve spent the day typing at my work spot at the rear of the garage;  I have a corner there where I make the money for this simple lifestyle, and it’s a pleasure to work in there.  It’s breezy, gets the morning sun because the roller door is wide open, and is in shade the rest of the day, which is good because afternoons can get pretty hot in there.  I’ve installed a ceiling fan in there; it’s a strange appendage for a garage, but because this is my office as well, it’s a necessity.  I’d never have air conditioning because being cold is something I just don’t crave.
Sometimes between work chapters, I’ll walk out the back door and to the pool, jump in, jump out, drip dry for a minute, and then sit back down again and type.  I reckon I have a pretty good lifestyle, sure beats sitting in an office in the city wearing heels and a skirt, and having one’s umbrella turned inside out from the icy arctic winds that blow perpetually down Collins Street as you fight your way with 20,000 others to the train station so you can pack like sardines onto your late train for the hour and a bit ride home each day.  Hmm, hard call, I know.
Nic is home, Bella is yapping furiously, and even Mooch has deigned to join the melee, and is rubbing between Nic’s legs and chirruping, with a glare at Bella who is just way too exuberant for that ol’ pussycat’s liking.  I can’t hear a thing through my headphones, and ask Nic to take the party elsewhere, which she duly does.  Straight to the fridge of course, followed by two hopeful critters.  She looks very sunny in her school uniform, and stunning as well.  My girl is growing up beautifully.  She is tanned dark golden, her hair is like spun gold but now it’s year round that golden dark honey colour, and against her white uniform she looks lively and full of vitality and bouncing good health.  I tell her so, and she tells me she loves me.  Ditto.

I’m on the home stretch now, and I want to finish work before it gets too much later.  It’s summer, so the days are a little longer, it’s light until about 7.30 which is really nice.  I wish we had daylight saving here, but you can’t have it all.  Plus I think I’d miss my early mornings, and they are very early.  It is light from about 4.30 in high summer, but of course that’s the bonus where you get to pack in so much before your day even really has to start; I can be swimming and walking at 6am, and frequently am, along with many others.
The best thing of course is that because my work is coming out of Melbourne who ARE on daylight saving time, that means I work to their hours.  So I start an hour earlier in summer and also finish an hour earlier, so in effect I still pick up that extra hour for myself.  Brilliant.

Queenslanders rise with their ever present sun, make the most of each day, and they go to bed early as well.  Once it’s dark, that is the time you will eat your dinner (if you haven’t earlier), watch a bit of TV perhaps, but then you are fighting to stay awake by 9, and that’s totally natural when you start so early each day.  You sleep well.  There is no artificial heating in your bed, in your house, because it’s not needed.  And because you’re active, your nights are peaceful and sleep is good and replenishing.  You wake up energised.
On the warmer evenings though, it is so lively down the river and along the beach that it’s nice to head over there for an ice cream, a walk, maybe a fun workout on the gym equipment dotted along the bike path on the river bank, and maybe even a night swim.  Everywhere you can see people and children laughing, enjoying life, the simple things, running around mostly unclothed because it’s a case of less is better when it’s so lovely and warm.  We walk back from the river after these evenings, it takes us about a ten minute walk to get home from there, and a nice cool shower follows, and then bed.  I tell Nic that we should take the paddle skis out one evening and row around Noosa Sound and look at the fairy lights (it’s Christmas and the residents put on a most spectacular show) and she agrees that would be fun, so we plan on that soon.
It’s nearly Christmas now, and the enormous Christmas Tree which is the focal point of Hastings Street roundabout is lit up like Fairyland, and people gather at that open space there just to enjoy the spectacle, before wandering over to New Zealand Natural to grab their favourite flavour and go and sit or walk on the beach in the dark, and splash in the waves.  As we stand there with water up to our knees, and I’ve insisted we join the queue at Massimo’s this night because their tiramisu icecream is well worth the wait, in fact it’s to die for, so we’re in the water, licking those ice creams, and looking back at the resorts all lit up, with people on the balconies, on the sand and in the water just like us, babies giggling with their doting parents splashing them in the shallows to cool them off.  And I think to myself, even after living here for years, I still feel like I’m dreaming.  It is too wonderful to be real that I get to live like this every day.  I see the tourists come and go.  They save their hard earned wages all year to have a holiday in a place like this, where we live, and then have to go back to the darkness and cold, work hard for many more months or even years, in order to have this again for a week, to remind them what living is all about.
I glance over at Nic; we have just finished our ice creams, and we’re both yawning from the sheer effort of being awake since 5, and our full sunny lives we now lead.  Time to go home to our cute little house and call it a day, till tomorrow.  She has school, I have work, and we have lots of joy, sun, warmth and flowers and animals and ocean and laughter and friendships to look forward to.

I think back to my last winter in Melbourne... the endless grey days, where even a freckle of pale blue sunshine is enough to make me freak out to be outside, only to be disappointed by the weakness of the sun, no warmth in it, and also its quick passing back to grey skies.  The gloom descends on me like a heavy blanket, not knowing when I am going to see the sun again, or when I do, how fleetingly.
I struggled out of bed each morning, after waking up to that grey sky and greyish palm tree breezing around, would take Nic to school, then go home and drink cup after cup of coffee, eat something, take all my pills (Vit D to replace the sunshine I cant have, Evening Primrose to help my hormones and bones, St Johns Wort for my moods and depression, a Berocca hopefully for some energy, and every few days, endless rounds of Mersyndol for the constant headaches and pains that I carried each day), and then to struggle reluctantly into what Nic calls “the hole” which is my office, painted in cheery blue, but a dark cold room with no sunshine and no view, and there I spend my day, the room heated with my fake flame heater, door shut to keep the heat in.  If I open the door, I’m cold.  I turn off the heater, and I’m cold again within a few minutes, so on it goes again.  This room, I feel, is making me very ill.
My feet try and dig in some warmth in the carpet square that sits on the tiles to keep my feet off the floor.  I have to work in bare feet or socks as I have to use a foot pedal.  Up north that’s no problem, but here it’s cold, even with the carpet.  It feels like I’m in the salt mines!  I keep a snuggy to wear across my lap; maybe I will only have to turn the heater on every half hour or so if I do this.  My arms ache too, but this is normal, and Pain is my Friend.

Nic would wander in the door at about 330, brightening an otherwise dull day.  Off to the living area, heater on, she sits and does her homework and snacks a bit too much.  The lounge is a light bright area, in fact it’s the best part of the house, you get a lovely view of the lake, and even when it’s grey it’s still quite spectacular.  We don’t notice it really, pretty much take it for granted, but we have had it for eight years, so I guess that’s excusable.  I do love watching and feeding my bird friends though, and I have many of those.  Never reliable, but always welcome here.

By the time I’d finish work, it would be dark, and then it’s a case of working out some sort of dinner, dutifully cooked, eat, and then settle in front of the TV for a long night in front of the box.  Nic showers, goes to bed.  I stay up and watch more TV or play on the ipad and dream of living in the sun, and then I go and hop into my electrically warmed bed and try to sleep.  Sometimes I even do.  And so it goes...  late to bed, reluctant to rise.

But now I’ve started this blog, and that is my contribution for today.  And it’s called Queensland, because this is what a day in the life of Queensland is all about, and it is time I chose light over darkness, happy over sad, peace over angst.  I just had to remind myself of the end result, and by writing this, I got to live the lifestyle and feel it again, and remind myself why all that effort is going to be so, so worthwhile.  It’s never going to be easy, but if it changes our lives, it’s time to let it.

So that was my journal entry, and in salesman speak, I guess it closed the deal.  But I am a wordsmith after all....

OK, so zooming back in on reality, it's not been QUITE like that.  Well, not YET.  It's been a lot of hard work actually, but it was always going to be.  It is not easy to pack up most of a Melbourne lifetime and shift it up into what is essentially the Big Unknown, particularly with a somewhat rebellious teenage daughter in tow.
But when she and I are frolicking in the waves in the early evening or playing ping pong out in our garage in singlets and shorts with my "old fogey" tunes playing, and the Queensland breezes rustling those palm leaves all around, getting devoured by mosquitos (in the garage) or by sea lice (at Main Beach) I have to pinch myself and wonder if I'm dreamin'.
To be continued......