Brace yourselves! Here comes the pensive pondering of the year that was...
In January the purchase of our ten acres went through and it all became official. We were really and truly going to move to New Zealand. I remember when B sent me this photo of our new front gate and I just about couldn't breathe from excitement. Was this really happening??
Those first few months of 2017 passed in a blur of stress, excitement, fear, apprehension, and joy. Oh and sleep deprivation. Always with a side of sleep deprivation.
Suddenly it was April and we packed up our house in Perth that had so many happy memories attached. Splashing in the pool, scootering up and down the driveway, many beers and laughs shared with friends on the back verandah. J's first steps, A's arrival, it all happened here.
We farewelled that sun-drenched suburban garden...
...for a slightly damper but much bigger one.
With the added bonus of our country lifestyle dream. Acres for our girls to roam, animals for them to raise and care for, warm eggs collected from under soft feathers, fluffy calves waiting at the gate, wood smoke and muddy puddles and apples hanging in the orchard.
Yes, it rained this winter. It rained a lot.
There were so many peaceful misty mornings that I stopped rushing out in my pyjamas to photograph them.
It rained some more. The paddocks literally streamed with water from all the rain.
And in between times it was very cold. Biting frosts, layers upon layers of woolies, the fire roaring all day.
We got sick. Over and over, the revolving door of coughs and colds that everyone had warned us about when moving to a new country. The girls coughed and coughed and coughed, they had permanently runny noses, we consumed (what felt like...) litres of children's paracetamol and ibuprofen. We were up with them, worrying, in the cold tiny hours of the night, or lying awake listening to one - or both - cough in their beds, and worrying.
We were stuck inside due to the rain for days on end. J's gumboots all sprung leaks. The cows huddled in the sodden paddocks. The trees were bare and cold, and the wood basket was filled and emptied, filled and emptied.
Then someone threw the switch and the sun came out.
A learned to crawl, and her sleep improved (for a time anyway). A sunny little toddler personality, with a side of fiery temper, emerged from that forlorn difficult little baby.
The trees and the garden beds all sprang to life with blossoms popping open and bulbs poking through the soil.
The paddocks exploded with buttercups.
My baby A turned one.
We added chooks and sheep to the menagerie, and had homegrown produce that we could barely keep up with.
The girls fought and cuddled and made each other shriek with laughter, then fought again and made each other cry, and then cuddled and read books together.
The feijoas, hydrangeas and the pohutukawas flowered. The sun beat down, the ground dried and cracked, the grass grew tall, went to seed and died.
The joy and excitement of Christmas filled little J to bursting, we ate and drank and the girls opened mountains of gifts. A day on the beach, shells in little plastic buckets, sunburn, hats, sandy toes. Little girls fast asleep in the back of the car winding our way back home, hot chips for dinner, early to bed for us all.
It's been a busy twelve months. So much has happened since this time last year! It's been hard at times, feeling lonely and exhausted and sometimes plain fed up.
Over and above all, though, it's been the year we finally got to start living the life we've dreamed of since we first met. It's been watching J pick a sprig of thyme to smell as she passes by. It's seeing A laugh properly and joyfully for the first time. Watching B tend to his animals. Sunshine, rain, frost, and steaming humidity.
And for me, it's that feeling of being a long way from where I started, but also home at last.
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