Festive Reflections

Fresh garden peas

Christmas, like pretty much everything else, feels a lot mellower over here. Perhaps it’s because it falls mid-summer rather than mid-winter, so we’re all busy enjoying ourselves outdoors rather than clinging desperately onto the tiny glimmer of warmth and sparkle that tinsel and fairy lights can provide in the depths of a dark British winter.

Whatever the reason, this year feels like we are building a Christmas that fits our life, rather building our life around Christmas. It feels like it might be fun. Maybe even relaxing…

I really hope so. Recently I think we’ve all been feeling like our brains are being stretched in a few too many different directions at once. Continue reading

Moving Across Town

red brick church Sandy Bay Road Hobart

You might have guessed from the silence on here that we have been mid-move again.

Believe it or not, the short move across town has been a lot more challenging than the move across the world was.

In part, that’s because of the physical scale of what we’ve been doing. Rather than walking into a dinky little furnished cottage where we needed to do little more than empty three suitcases into the cupboards, we have been unpacking the contents of a forty-foot container, some of which we only packed up nine weeks ago, but some of which we haven’t seen in over two years. (Hello DorkySon’s old playpen, and random wooden medicine cabinet that I don’t remember ever buying…). We have been trying to fit nearly forty large boxes of books into a house with just one built in bookcase. And for the first time ever, we are in a house with a flight of stairs, which is helping me discover all sorts of new muscles I didn’t even know I had. Continue reading

20 Signs that you’re Getting Old

An image of the rings in a tree trunk, with the text '20 signs that you're getting old'.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that I turned thirty earlier this year. I wasn’t too worried about it at the time, but in the months since I’ve noticed some odd things happening that definitely weren’t part of twenties-life. I think *whisper it* I might be starting to get a bit old.

In an attempt to reassure myself that I’m not the only one (that means you have to leave lots of comments agreeing with me, please) I thought I’d compile a list. So here it is. 20 signs that you’re getting old.

Continue reading

Seven Weeks

A lemon tree in our garden

Exactly seven weeks ago, we landed in Hobart.

Today, we picked up the keys for our new house. We walked around the light, bright empty rooms, imagining how they will look and feel when we move in next weekend. I can’t wait to see them, crammed to bursting with our books and rugs, our paintings and photos, our love and our laughter.

As we were leaving, DorkySon plucked a perfectly ripe fruit from the tree that grows in our new garden.

Anyone for lemonade?