Gum Trees by the Dam
I AM HOME!
It is just over two weeks since we arrived in Australia, but it feels more like two months. We’ve really jammed things in, especially considering how exhausted we were after the last few days in Glasgow.
What a month we have had!
But now we are home… and homeless… but not for long! We’ve been living like like gypsies without a van, moving from home to home so as not to overstay our welcome anywhere, but this week we moved into the house we’re minding for the next six weeks. It’s lovely to finally unpack the suitcases and know I don’t need to pack them again for a while.
After landing and reconnecting with family, my next priority was to find our future home. I threw myself into the search, spending hours scouring online real estate sites, making appointments and then viewing properties. However, five days of intensive searching and viewing, left me at the point of despair. Prices seemed to have risen dramatically in the last two years, something I didn’t expect. House after house was a disappointment.
On day six, all that changed.
We inspected another property that I thought looked interesting when I drove by it the day before, and our first impression lifted my spirits immensely. But, it seemed too good to be true, so we had to go back for a second viewing two days later before we made up our minds and the deal was clinched. On Tuesday, we made an offer, on Wednesday, it was ours!
Our first visitors
It doesn’t fulfill every requirement I wished for, but it comes close enough, and suddenly those other things I wanted seem unimportant, or we’ll find ways to manage them. My main wish for any house we bought, was to be able to look out the window and see gum trees, and thankfully, this house gives me that, but…
It has more!
It has sea views!
Sea View
I’m amazed we managed to find a home within our budget that has magnificent sea views.
More sea
Am I dreaming?
Apart from finding such a wonderful home to live in as we settle back to life in Australia, coming home has held endless pleasures for me –
- Spending time with my children, family and friends,
- Driving through the magnificent countryside (everything is very green!),
- The blue skies (sometimes interrupted by clouds and rain, but not for long),
- Warm days with temperatures in the high teens and twenties,
- Soft white sandy beaches with glistening water in various shades of blue.
- The Australian native trees,
- The noisy and colourful birds,
- The people who smile and say g’day when we pass in the street,
- The shops filled with the old familiar foods,
- The ease of buying my favourite black goods – Vegemite and Darrell Lea Licorice.
- The wonderful familiarity of the way everyone speaks.
- However, an unexpected bonus that I hadn’t thought of before is the feeling of permanence. I don’t have to worry if something I buy is perishable, or if it will fit in the suitcase because this time… I am not visiting. I am here to live.
Vegemite and Darrell Lea Licorice
Beach
Garden
Wattle
Bottle Brush
I LOVE being HOME!
Related articles
- Does Australia Actually Matter? (madass.me)
- The things I miss most about Australia (ladyandthetradie.com)
Juli Townsend's Transition to Home 
And it is great to have you back!
Thanks, Mike. Look forward to catching up with you – next week?
So beautiful! You’re going to get a stack of people wanting to visit!:)
That will be nice, Margaret. We’ve got used to having houseguests over the last ten years. 🙂
Great to know you are back in Oz … Permanently , hope for a visit, p’raps next winter if not before.
Probably not before, Anne, but it’s definitely on the agenda.
Oh Juli, I can’t tell you how overjoyed I am for you, on all counts! The house was meant for you – we invest so much of our souls into our house, don’t we, being the physical centre of our world, which embraces the people we love and like when they visit. And where all the important stuff goes on, increasingly including births, hopefully!
Love, Suzanne and Jean x
Thanks, Suzanne. 🙂
You were on my list of people to email about this, but now the full moon and subsequent blog has beaten me to it. xx
so pleased you are home and have found a house
Me, too Juliette! It’s great to have so much ongoing time with my kids.
It looks gorgeous.
I think it is. 🙂
Welcome home! I don’t know where you are, but it’s beautiful.
Thank you, Cosette. We’re on the Mornington Peninsula. It’s where we lived for twenty-eight years before we left. I’m loving being back here.
Pingback: One Last Look at 2013 | Juli Townsend's Transition to Home
Pingback: Dealing with Stress in my Forever Life | Juli Townsend's Transition to Home