Tuesday, March 19, 2013

our village grows







Finally my parents sold their Tassie farm. They packed all their belongings into a shipping container, sailed the ferry across Bass Strait and ate pancakes for breakfast with us last Sunday morning.

I'm not sure how many years we've been waiting for them to be our across the Lane neighbours, but it feels like so many. So many plans made, so many meals imagined, so many every day life scenarios looked forward to.

Apple picking all together, the seven of us, is definitely something we've been excited for.

This afternoon after school, I texted my Mum to let her know we were heading down to the orchard to pick the Cox's Orange Pippins. Ten minutes later on their way home from getting their new library cards in town, my parents joined us. Together, us seven, we filled the picking bags and crates with apples. Laughing and chatting and reminding each other of how long we'd talked about that very moment.

We're so thrilled to have them here. Everything's a first, it's so fun and exciting. It's hard to imagine that it's real, that they are here for the long term and not ever going back. It's hard to imagine that I'll have my parents and my girlies will have their grandparents to share our lives with.

I've often thought about that saying it takes a village to raise a child since moving away from ours 12 years ago. Now I'm thrilled our girls' village will be closer and easier than a phone call, drive or flight. Indi will have somewhere to run away from home to, Jazzy will have four more ears to read to and Pepper will have somewhere to ride her bike down the hill to.

It feels so right.

Welcome Mum and Dad! We hope our home becomes your home so, so soon. xx


So how about you, do you have your village there with you?
Do your parents/children play a part in your day-to-day life?
Would you like them to?
Do you like the good old Cox's Orange Pippin?

See ya later potata x

52 comments:

  1. That is so cool for sure... I bet the kids are loving having them closer for sure!!

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  2. Awww, how lovely to have them so close! My village (well, Mum) is still safely ensconced in Hobart/Bruny Island. They probably know each other. I'd love her to move closer to us here in Qld but know she couldn't deal with the heat. xx

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  3. I am so happy for you guys! You have waited so long for that to happen, and now it's reality - yay! SO much fun for all of you lying ahead!

    Fine

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  4. Gosh Kate!! You look like your Mum!! Xx julie

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  5. Yay! My dad's 10 minutes away, and it's awesome. xK

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  6. How lovely for you all. I have lived almost half my life now and all my mothering years on the other side of the world from my parents and sisters. We came for a year with work initially and I was very happy to go home after that but my husband wanted to come back for another couple of years so I agreed. That couple of years somehow turned into a couple of decades. I still miss my family every day and think that my boys would have benefited greatly if they had had family around when they were growing up. It's hard work trying to raise your kids alone. My Dad died a couple of years ago (that was the worst flight of my life) and I deeply regret that I missed out on having him involved in my life and my boys lives. He was a great man.
    So I look forward to hearing about all those special moments you and your girls are going to have with your parents. Enjoy one another and cherish every moment.
    PS I love an orange pippin.

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  7. How wonderful and exciting for you all. I cant get over how tall Indi is getting, she will tower over her dad soon. I always think it is a great experience for our children to grow up around their grandparents as it enriches all their lives and makes it much happier. Enjoy your village Kate, you must be feeling so much happier now!

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  8. Beautiful! How lovely for you to have that long-awaited physical closeness! My parents are 45 minutes away, but Mum has been coming out to help me take the girls to swimming on a Monday this term and it's been the highlight of my week. It's hard when your parents are still very much working and busy themselves, but wonderful to know that if I really needed them, they'd be there in a heartbeat, just as it's always been :) Dad was so, so busy when I was a kid but I still knew if I needed to be driven somewhere (even magicked up to uni when I was late handing in an assignment!) he'd somehow make it happen. Enjoy your bigger family and more helper hands!

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  9. I am so glad that one of your dreams has come true! It is awesome to have grandparents close by for your kids to visit.

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  10. That would be awful if it were me. My parents live a long way a way from me. They choose to leave me to live abroad when I was a teenager (I was homeless). They returned to the country 7 years later. I had contact with them until my daughter was 11 when they moved to the other end of the country. They contact me 2 times a year and I haven't seen them since. That was 14 years ago. They haven't asked to see their grandchild in all that time and rarely ask about her at all. So, we coped perfectly well without the people who didn't care about me and didn't care about my daughter. If they were around now, it would make my life very difficult. They never added anything to my life from the age of 14 when I worked to buy my own clothes etc. They did feed me but that is all. So no, not an influence on caring parenthood that I either wanted or needed around my family.

    I'm glad that all families are not like mine though and that people do have strong bonds. I have strong bonds with my adult daughter that is a world away from my relationship with my parents. I wish you all much happiness and joy.

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  11. How lovely to have your parents but a stones throw away. I moved three hours east from mine nearly two years ago. My Mum comes and visits and this year is going to try and make it every month :) I don't know cox pippins but I love Pink Ladies and have been using the good old Granny Smith to make apple mush for breakfast - more appetising than it sounds.

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  12. I am so happy for you, I grew up like that. I still detour to my grandma's everytime we go down south.

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  13. You lucky lucky lady! I'd love to have my parents move down here near us. My brother and his gorgeous girl just bought a place down here though, and they're having a baby soon, so we are super excited about that! It'll be so great to have family close by, and who knows, maybe mum and dad will decide on the sea change too..

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  14. What a wonderful post, it bought a huge smile to my face. Your love for your parents is so clear in the way you talk about them and I really love it when people love their folks so much!
    I moved away from my parents 5 years ago now and now live about 2 hours away. I'm so lucky that they still come to see me so often but we've always talked about living closer and now that my boyfriend and I are talking more and more seriously about starting a family of our own it's been coming up more. I know they really want to be involved when we have children and I can't wait to see that, I just know they'll make amazing grandparents and I love the idea of family days out and my children growing up close to their grandparents like I grew up close to my Nana. Family has always been so important to me so I definitely hope our dreams become a reality and we do end up close together.

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  15. It looks like everybody is happy with the new arrangements!

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  16. Oh yes! That would be lovely if our parents were closer!:)

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  17. Yippee! I was just wondering about this the other week.

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  18. We built a house here on my parents farm about 6 years ago now. So they're literally 200m up the road in the house I grew up in. Then 100m between my parents and our place is my grandmother!! So I was brought up with my grandparents very close and now my children get to have grandparents and great grandparents right here just out of Deloraine, not far from your parents old place!! I feel just so lucky that my children get to have such a close relationship with their grandparents. Not to mention the help that I appreciate to no end. I'm sure you'll all love being so close.

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  19. Beautiful...I love having family close by. xxx

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  20. Absolutely wonderful Kate. That's so exciting to be finally entering this chapter that you've all talked of for so long.
    Wonderful.
    xx

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  21. my parents just recently moved to my village. 5 minutes down the road. I see them at least twice a week now and the girls love spending time with them. Family is so important. I am happy for you xx

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  22. So, so happy for you. I can't ever have mine anymore but it was wonderful when I did. Cherrie

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  23. So so Happy for you Dear Kate!! :) Had read your post where your parents were planning to sell their house and move near your place.. finally the wait is over!!
    As I had mentioned in my mail, I live in a large joint family of 11 members and cannot imagine living nuclear now.. My two sons are getting the best raising I could have thought.. love of their grandmother, aunties and elder cousins, a blessing rtuly. Also, my parents stay nearby so we visit them on weekend ..

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  24. how lovely! yes my parents are close to...next door. We have a gate in the fence and the children and dog move between the two houses. It makes me well up when my son draws a picture of his family and nan and pop are included. There is a lot of positives however on some occasions like today mum drove me batty! But its all in good fun and tollerance!!

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  25. Six years ago we moved from the east coast to the west coast. We moved away from everyone & everything we knew. We were happy to do it, excited to do it & thought distance was what we needed.
    We don't regret the move. We are happy & have a good life but I feel like I cheated our kids, that I didn't think enough about how it would be for them to be so far from all their extended family. It's hard for them , & us, to not have them close by but I doubt we'll ever go back. We just make the best of it
    Enjoy this new part of your life Kate, I can tell how excited you are! xx

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  26. Such exciting news Kate.......
    It's so nice to have family around particularly parents/grandparent.....
    So pleased for you, that the wait is finally over and wishing you lots of fun times ahead.

    Claire x

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  27. How wonderful for you all Kate. I am missing our families more and more the longer we are here.
    x

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  28. I am so so thrilled for you!! How lovely - I can't imagine anything more lovely than having my family across the lane. Perfect! I wish you many many years of apple picking :-)

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  29. you are so going notice the difference in your world!.... theres a certain security that comes along with it that is hard to explain. having the love ones that just "get you" close by and sharing it all is so much better than I ever expected it would be. I never knew how much I needed and loved my mum and dad until I was 38 and finally living within cooee of them after 20 years oceans apart. there will be some hiccups, but they are relationship builders too. x

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  30. It's all beautiful, your family together, the apples and the love coming through your words and pictures
    My children have one grandparent and only today we met with my sister, her children and our mother for afternoon tea in the park just because it was a lovely day in Melbourne. So there we were, pre-schooler, schoolchild, teens, mums and grandmother.

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  31. So happy for you all!!
    Love a Coxs Orange Pippin (from Roald Dahl - even before I ever at one)
    We do have a little village here (grandparents and the friends who are family) and we love it
    x

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  32. That's just wonderful i am so happy for you all, especially for the girls it's an incredibly special thing.

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  33. oh i thought the birds got all the coxs orange pippins?

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  34. i'm so excited tooooooo! stunning post, sis. x x x x

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  35. What a delight. I am so happy for you all. The first photo brings tears to my eyes - the happiness in that photo is grand. Enjoy :-)

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  36. So happy for you. How wonderful and I'm sure has been worth the wait. Enjoy spending time with your new neighbours! x

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  37. Ooooh I am jealous! And really happy for you. I love the line .....so Indi will have somewhere to run to. Such wise words mumma bear. Such wise words.
    Xxxx

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  38. wonderful Kate! we're moving at the end of the year and will be closer to both sets of grandparents...not across the lane but better than a 3 hour drive away! Oh your village looks wonderful x

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  39. Sounds like pure bliss... How I wish we had family closer. But no, I left my country, my roots when meeting my husband. We have traveled and lived the world (including Australia where my oldest girl was born :D). And now when the kids are growing up and my brothers also have started families at home in Sweden I feel a great loss of not being able to have them close by. What a dream come true for you all. I am envious, I have to admit. I often remind myself I have a great life, I actually have it all, but there will always be a part of me missing my family back home.
    Annette
    My Rose Valley

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  40. This dream came true for us at the start of this year too!! (although dad is still tying up loose ends with his business and making his way down here). It is so wonderful and something i still can't fully get my head around. The little things are the best. Dinner last night at mum's. The kids having a sleepover with nanny tonight. it has certainly lightened the load.

    enjoy having your folks near by.

    rachel xo

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  41. they are my MOST FAVE apple since I was a kid and I have found them hard to get here in Tassie over the last few years (the Apple Isle no longer) but I am happy to say we have some at the moment YAY when I was growing up we always would travel along the Tamar River way and could choose from many orchards and mum would buy apples by the crate, but there are not many orchards left here sadly

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  42. Oh how wonderful! So happy that they have moved into the neighbourhood. Great photos :) Kx

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  43. This brought tears to my eyes. Happy for you, imagining how amazing it must be to have your parents so close, finally. And tears as I miss my mum so much some days now we live overseas. I look forward to a time when we are closer again. Enjoy your new neighbours.

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  49. I remember when I was small and we went to my Grandparents cottage in the countryside, picked strawberries and there were apples and lots of other fruits and vegetables... Your pictures remind me of it all. I wish my children could grow up ina place like that one day.

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Kate XX

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