“We are living on an island, under an island, under an island, at the edge of the world.”
Sometimes you find a holiday spot that’s just so beautiful that you feel torn between telling everyone about it and keeping it a secret so it doesn’t get overrun.
That’s how I feel about our time away on Bruny Island last week. Given that my blog audience is a small one though, and that most of you live many thousands of miles away, I feel safe in spilling the beans. Continue reading
We are in the middle of the Easter holidays here.
I thought it was going to be a quiet break, but it hasn’t turned out that way. DorkySon spent last weekend recovering from the excitement of his birthday – he lay on the sofa and worked his way steadily through all the new DVDs he’d been given – but this week he has had a swimming lesson every day and we have been fitting in all the things like dentist appointments and haircuts that can no longer happen during the term.
Last night DorkyDad and I went to the launch of Dark MOFO. Tomorrow our supply of winter firewood arrives, so we’ll be spending a good few hours stacking that and – *shudders* – hopefully avoiding the spiders. Next week we head to Bruny Island for a few nights, before having some friends to stay for the final weekend of the holiday. Continue reading
So now you are six.
You are not a wee soft thing anymore. There is still a slight curve to your belly, and enough for a squeeze under your chin, but otherwise you are all angles and lines, long skinny legs pink with the sun.
What a year we’ve had together. This time twelve months ago you were still settling into kindergarten, sometimes nervous around other children, struggling to hold a pen the right way. But you are in the perfect school. It is a community that has nurtured all your strengths and found the right way to help with your weaknesses.
Like us, they have realised that you like to do things in your own time, unhurried. They know that gentle nudges towards independence work far better for you than rough shoves. So now, one term into prep, it is all falling into place. The building blocks of reading and writing are coming together so fast we can hardly keep up with you. All the life skills – cycling, swimming, socialising – are getting better each week. And at home you are proud to help and get involved – dressing yourself, carrying plates, pouring drinks – you become more confident and less clumsy with every day that passes. Continue reading
We went away last weekend to the North West of Tasmania, an area of the state that I hadn’t been to before. It is so beautiful up there.
The drive is quite a long one – it took us about four and a half hours from Hobart – but that included a couple of short stops. The Midlands Highway is a very pretty drive, and DorkySon had great fun looking out for the metal sculptures that are dotted along the edge of the road.
We were staying with some of our oldest and closest friends, who have recently moved to Tasmania. We first met almost ten years ago in Edinburgh, when we were two relatively new couples. Now we are married and they are married. We have a son and they have a daughter. It is strange but wonderful that we have both somehow ended up on this small island on the other side of the world. Continue reading
One of the nicest things about our holiday up the East Coast last year was that it didn’t involve getting on a plane. We just threw our stuff in the back of the car and off we went.
We’ve just made plans for a few days break over Easter and we’ve done the same thing – booked a cottage that is less than a couple of hours drive away.
I am not keen to get on a plane again for a good long while.
I’ve been trying to work out when it stopped being fun because as a child even the prospect of flying was brilliant. Growing up on Harris, I used to lie on my back in the garden looking at the sky. Tiny Loganair planes flew over the house, on their way to adventures in Inverness or even Glasgow. I would imagine the strangers in suits, quietly reading newspapers and sipping drinks that sparkled with ice cubes and slices of lemon. When I visited my Grandpa, down in Staffordshire, I’d lie and watch bigger planes that had taken off from Manchester. I always thought the rows of white jet trails looked like someone had dragged a fork across the sky. Continue reading
Dorkymum | Stories from Tasmania 