Edinburgh

The Shore Leith

So we are back from Edinburgh – the final stop on the whirlwind world tour that we’ve been making before the big move. It was an easy, sweet and comfortable week, which we spent surrounded by many of the people who know us best. It was an oddly calm and unemotional reunion with the city I once loved so much I dedicated to an entire A-Z to it on this blog.

DorkyDad stayed in the centre of town, and spent most of the week focused on his festival shenanigans. I did steal him away for dinner at our favourite fish restaurant in Leith one evening – the first Dorky date night in a year – and I also made it along to watch the final of the BBC Poetry Slam that he was hosting. Continue reading

Summer in the States

summer ice cream

When I shared our big news last week, I mentioned that we’re trying to spend as much time as possible visiting family and friends this summer. We started with our wonderful trip to Harris at the end of June, and I said at the time it was one of the best weeks DorkySon had ever had. That remains true, but after the fortnight that we’ve just spent in the States I think we’ve got another holiday to add to the list of favourites. Continue reading

The One Where We Move to Tasmania from the UK

A statue of Louis Bernacchi at Hobart waterfront with the text 'Moving to Tasmania from the UK'

We are moving house again. Not a little move, but a big one.

We are moving from the UK to Tasmania.

Yikes.

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I can tell you the exact moment that I made my decision.

It was a beautiful sunny day. I was sitting on a bench in a playpark, the sun on my face, drinking a cup of tea and making easy conversation with another mum – someone I’d met all of forty minutes earlier. Her young son was gurgling contentedly on a picnic blanket at her feet, while mine had just jumped off the slide and was running up a small hill towards the swings, when suddenly he stopped and shouted.

‘Mummy! Mummy! Come and look at this! It’s a parrot! Lots of parrots!’

I walked towards him, and sure enough, there were five or six brightly coloured rosellas walking around, squawking and pecking at the grass.

DorkySon was enthralled, and something flicked in my head at that moment.

Yes, I said to myself. Yes. We can do this. We can move to Tasmania.

And so we are.

Continue reading

A Happy Harris Holiday

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a four-year-old boy. Imagine that your favourite things to do are playing with your cars and trucks, spending time with your family, and running around outside to burn off all that energy that you have. Then imagine that you can go on holiday for a week and do all those things, every single day.

Lucky old DorkySon has just had one of the best weeks of his life up on Harris. It is always a pleasure to spend time back on the island that was my childhood home. It is one of those places where the pace of life is slower, where there are only imperceptible changes from year to year, and where I am always greeted like an old friend. It’s an even bigger pleasure for me now to watch DorkySon enjoy the same simple things that I did as a wee girl.

Isle of Harris beach Continue reading