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......
