“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”

I believe in working. Well most of the time I do. Which is actually just as well because I need to work for a living. In fact me and Alex both do and mostly we like it that way. I think needing to do something for your very survival can be good for the soul.  Like millions of others, we’ve worked to pay the bills, to eat, to educate us and our children, to holiday, to clothe us and to fill our homes with probably too much stuff that we don’t really need. And it’s big bonus time if we also happen to like our jobs. That makes you one of the lucky ones. Some people will need to earn to live and some will have less of a need to earn in order to live. Some people have a greater need to work than they have to earn. Everyone is different and that’s what makes life good. When I visited a temple on a school trip last month, our guide showed us a thousand little pots in the temple which are emptied and filled with water every night. This mundane and lengthy task is believed to help the person doing the job because it teaches patience, requires commitment and strengthens the character. The reason for my preoccupation with all of this is because recently I have been getting concerned at the pretence around the subject of money. Money, money, money… there I’ve said it!!! I am not a millionaire and I’m not going to pretend that I am. But ridiculously, there appears to be an increasing pressure today to do just that. I am not poor if poverty is measured by hunger, home, health, love, opportunity and education. But you can make me appear poor if you choose to measure it by something you know I don’t have. I am passionate about working hard and being rewarded for that, and I clearly will never merit a true marxist tag although in my more romantic moments I do imagine.. but that’s not who I am. I love the funny silly things in life. I love travel and good food and good company and daft pointless sparkly things as much as anyone. And I hate snobbery in all its deceptive forms. Reflecting on this, I have come to the conclusion that I clearly have too much time on my hands these days to be quite so preoccupied with the not very nice. I really do need to get back to work, and start earning those stupid sparkly things again.

Auld Lang Syne

Tomorrow I’ve booked to go and view a house! All by myself as Alex’ on a course, so no pressure huh! It’s below budget and in a bit of a boho area called Mt Lawley. We’ve been in Mt Lawley a couple of times already and I use the word boho deliberately. It’s honestly not code for ‘can be a bit scary and mental’ as I would think if someone used that description. It’s a bustling little area with lots of middle class organic types and brilliantly connected to the city. Only takes 5 – 10 minutes on the bus. I guess at this stage my only concern is the price. Its $200 a week cheaper than we’d budgeted for. But we’d originally planned to live by the beach a la Home and Away style, so fingers crossed it’s not a total dump and a big disappointment. As you might have gathered… I’m flying solo with this one – our ‘relocation expert’ has this time not been invited to rain on my parade!

I’m cooking tonight. I’ve decided that finally it’s time. The truth is since we arrived in the apartment almost two weeks ago we have barely used the kitchen apart from tea, coffee and wine pouring. It’s all a bit odd because I love cooking and I love having the time to cook, and as you know (!!)  time is something I’m not short of, but I haven’t once felt the urge to go in there and create something mildly resembling a home cooked meal. I get the most embarrassingly stepford pleasure seeing the fridge stocked full of cheese and meat and vegetables, but that’s as far as it’s gone. The kitchen, it looks like one of those shop displays you see in Ikea, completely spotless and unused. My theory is not that I’m missing cooking for a family, trust me that ship left the dock a long time ago –  just ask Claire and Dom (Oh how I miss your cooking!) – but it is I believe, something to do with this thing called ‘home’. Little steps.

I believe that I can also announce that I have friends… BIG phews!!! I told you last time that I was meeting a few people… well it all went amazingly and we discovered a mutual love of fun, wine and all things Scottish! My friend Lesley told me that when people leave Scotland they get even more patriotic and develop a greater awareness and pride in their heritage, and she’s right. And so while in my opinion I’m still spending far too much time on my own, this happy development means I now look forward to the next lunch or dinner or absolutely anything with these lovely new people.

When Alex and I were out at the weekend, the waitress serving us had a Glasgow accent. So of course I wasted absolutely no time in asking where she was from and within 5 minutes she was writing down ideas of places for us to live and inviting me back this week to hang out with her and drink wine! As my gran used to say… I’d get a piece at anybody’s door!!

A couple of family things this week reminded me of the massive personal cost of being away from home. My dad’s only sister, my Aunt Greta died and then a really close friend of my mum’s, Helga died almost immediately after. I shared this news on Skype with Beverley (our first born, in Japan) and immediately I could see on her face too the reality of that cost. This is such an emotional and reflective time for my mum and dad and with all of my heart I wish we were all there with them just now, just to hug and to listen and to share our stories and memories. As we can't be there, I've posted my own wee tribute. Click on the link below.

Speak soon xx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1n-f-Zusaw

p.s. I'm not in any way technical so if this doesn't work with a click - copy and paste on you tube xx

I Don't Speak French...

Brigadoon? It's a mythical Scottish village, a perfect beautiful place that doesn't really exist. I saw the movie when I was about nine or ten on tv, it's a really old movie - I mean it was old even when I saw it.. and I remember thinking how perfect life would be if we all lived in Brigadoon. It was a santa thing. I knew it wasn't real but I enjoyed imagining it was and I think I still do.

We arrived in Perth (Australia) last Tuesday night, absolutely knackered, a little excited and a fair bit terrified too. We'd left behind a life crammed full of incredible people who give our lives shape and meaning, and who are far more important to us than I could ever express. So why did we leave? Partly down to Brigadoon I reckon. Alex's job ended and the opportunity came up. This really is it, this is the life we live, and if we refuse all the adventures offered to us then have we really actually lived at all? And so here we are.