I have driven into the horizon, its vortex pulling me through it and into my next chapter. The Mercedes and its heavy load glide smoothly down the highway, winding gracefully around country roads as I sing along to the radio. I beautiful sense of calm has overwhelmed me, and arrived into town to the rush and bustle of fixing my little house up. All hands are on deck to prepare and paint, and only a few days we can start moving things in!

Its a very dark and wet autumn Sydney day, and its taken me until midday to get out of the pijamas and make some breakfast. My room is a jumble of boxes and those things you do not know where to put, broken necklaces, bits of film, bow ties, and general nostalgia that I toss up taking or leaving, shoving in a box and hiding it here to get older. I start to consider the need of things, what to spend precious money on, or time relocating. what books will I take but never look at? What items will sit in a room and speak of me?
 How will a house fit together with the collage of life bits, mostly either inherited, gifted, handmade or sentimental.
I try to discard the junk but want to fill this new home with as much charm as I can! Its a hard thing to imagine, the nature a space will hold, and my excitement cant get ahead of me. I am not at all nervous and even less so after speaking to the university this morning. The head of department took my news to relocate to Braidwood so warmly, and excitedly informed me of the wonderful arts community there, and how the course is just what I'm looking for and will definitely find networks and programs that will support me and keep me connected.
My only real concern is isolation, yet thats more of a precaution, and a good one, that will help me draw new friends and communities into my life.

I envisage; A studio, light filled and organized. I envisage fireplace reading spots, shared dinners, baked goods, walls of gifted and collaborated artworks, flowers in everything, lanterns and weekend visitors, bushwalking trails and horse smells, second-hand sales and new academic friends, things created to share, ceramic, print, cloth, card, wallpaper. Collectives. Herbs and veggies. Dad coming to build a chook shed to get hot little eggs for breakfast. Local events, day trips to the sea, casseroles, Jimmy's garlic, woodpiles, winter mornings, endless pots of tea, painting trips, drawing days, picnics on mount Gillamatong, visits to other small towns as yet undiscovered. Summer swims in the Shoalhaven, family lunches, horse rides through snowy mountains, and a cash job.

Right now, I enter that world of to-do lists and gumtree.com, wardrobes, ikea, second hand shops, $2 shops, boxes, sifting and sorting, hunting, like a seasoned consumer, for the building blocks of a life to be lived in.

We have just gone through the belly of the house here in Avalon, and pulled out bits of family history we thought were gone forever. Baby photos of uncles I have never heard of, and the debris of kids who have picked up and left in a hurry, shoving inconsequential paperwork in boxed heap, tangles of cords and fabric, moth eaten umbrellas, and that stuff we keep and watch die.
A couple of great things though, I managed to wrangle out of the chaos, most notably those lovely old vintage wall-hanging maps, and some crockery mum made years ago. Along with hand-me-down willow pattern plates, Granny Bet's old wool blankets in apricot and plum, and some lovely little side tables with slender timber legs.

I pray the move from one life to another will run smooth and not take too long, up-rooting is a strange sensation, and these objects cry out to me for their transition to be swift, as they are as eager as I to start a new and useful life.

One Fine Day

Toe and Jonathan have a converted shed.
It has a sky blue painted floor, an A-frame ceiling and a big old bed weighted down in heavy quilts and woven blankets.
It is Toe's studio, sporting a potters kick-wheel, a little kiln, a big ceramic old work sink, and spots of terracotta along workbenches and the floor.
Still-lives busy the shelves and window sills, jars with seasonal blossoms, wobbly coil pots like curvy women, ceramic people of all colours, cans with pencils, shells and collected bits, water jugs and lute-playing bears carved of wood.

Windows spread all around with lace and cloth, and its a sweet light-filled space, floating on a sea of green. It is outside that comes inside that creates all the charm, the waving of the young gums in the soft breeze, the wobbling of the rose vines, the fields and pastures beyond with, on one corner, a lone white pony, trotting endlessly down the fence that meets with the neighbors horses. Another corner, waving pines and hilltops beyond, threads of woven trees bordering plots and fields, autumn-orange poplars, happy like landmarks. Huge, generous blue skies with wisps of playful cloud, and darting sparrows, chatting currawongs, and general country-calm sits amongst us like a full silence.

Mum, glasses on and propped up in the colourful bed, circles potential investment properties in a pamphlet. Sprawling bushy acreage on the Shoalhaven, stately stone homes from the 1800's, all cracked and creviced. Vacant plots and timber sheds, modern homes and eco lodges. Jack-Jack the rabbit-eared terrier lays languidly in the sun outside the open door, snapping every so often at unsuspecting insects. We weave dreams together from the river-side photos of ancient landscapes and vistas in the pamphlet, and am charmed by this bountiful part of the world.
It is a glorious autumn day, icey morning but warm, full day.

We have just seen and loved, a little 1950s home which we have accepted to rent.
It feels right.
Big sun room, with sunny yellowy floor boards and lemon walls, lavender and rosemary out the back door, roses and plums out the front. Every space, other than a pokey and peacefully blue-coloured laundry, is sun-filled and happy. A woodfire in a generous living area, and a kitchen with garden windows, gas stove, and room for a little round table to sit for breakfast and the papers. My imagination is ignited by the prospects of a life in this home. Two big rooms in the front which can be for guest, and for studio, as well as an old and slightly damp though sufficently charming little blue shed out the back as a workshop.


The town too, feels right.
We went in for a coffee, and the barista, in his pub-turned-cafe learned our names swiftly and made a smooth soy latte.
The local organic baker, too eagerly informed us of all the breads on offer and how and when they were made. Then, out of the back, brought out a lump of grassy-smelling dough for us to smell and knead. We went out of there with hot sourdough buns and fragrant chilli-artichoke antipastos.
The real estate agents, the first being a burly and barrel-chested chunk of a country man, smelling of lanolin and polished leather with woodfire undertones. Gentle and informative. The second, we had to find in the local old supermarket which is up for auction, we found him and a few other locals retreating out of a manhole in the ceiling, cobweb covered and exhilerated with potential living space above the shop space. He was all too eager to share with us local information and make the deal on the little rental place there and then, in the dusty and dark time warped abandoned supermarket.

This is day one, and this afternoon we are meant to be resting, recovering from a night on the wines last night, but we are excited by the potential of this little life!

I am off into town to buy butter to make an apple pie out of the apples which are falling off the tree.