Friday, September 21, 2018

when the wattle is golden



This morning on the drive home over the mountains and through the forest, I thought about the last two weeks, and my blog, and the sort of things I could write about today. The light was streaming in through the trees, Indi was playing music, we stopped once to watch a pair of orange billed white ducks fossicking on the roadside, and then we pointed out baby lambs in paddocks, brightly coloured camellia and rhododendron bushes, and she told me random details as she remembered them from her past few days. Some of her last as a school girl.

For the best part of the past two weeks I have been living in someone else's house, at the base of another mountain, feeling like my own life is on hold.

As a family we decided that for our Indi's last two weeks of proper school, two weeks that were filled with early morning and late night classes, assessments every day and a never ending to-do list, we would stay in a house away from our home. A house ten minutes away from her school which is usually an hour away. To cut out the long commute, to give her more time for study, more time for sleep and easier access to teachers and odd hours.

And over the past two weeks Pepper came and went back home for school and activities, Bren came and went for work and to look after Pepper, and Jazzy and Indi lived there. They ate and slept and worked and played guitar and sang and had friends over and went to school and came home.

As for me, for two weeks I feel like I have driven girls back and forth so many times that I felt dizzy. I have smiled at crazy cackling laughter and comforted through many tears. I have cooked, I have listened, I have edited, I have pep-talked, I have worried and I have celebrated, I have been so in tune with other people's emotions that I put my own on hold.

And while I had some wonderful times: a whole day off alone with Bren away from the farm, a night of knitting with my wonderful friend Elizabeth, a two day visit from my mum...for the most part I felt like I was living some sort of alternate life. Like the life I was living wasn't really my own. Cooking meals from shop bought ingredients that I have in my pantry and garden at home, spending all of my time inside with no farm to tend or forest to walk, watching the television at night for company, no wifi and terrible phone reception, being on standby at all hours of the day, not knowing a soul in the supermarket or cafe, and missing my home and my people.

It didn't feel like my usual life and yet it wasn't a holiday either; so weird.

But it was a blessing to be able to do it for my girl and we all agreed that it was hugely successful. Exactly what we'd hoped for happened. We might even do it again in her exam week.

And as I drove home up the driveway this morning through a blaze of golden wattle, it occurred to me that I don't really have a lot to blog about this week. I haven't had any major revelations, I haven't finished a book or a knitting pattern or harvested anything from the garden. But our big girl was sitting in the car across from me smiling. She's got two months until her final year of high school exams are over. And when she's smiling my whole world is filled with sunshine, so I'm smiling too.

I'm so happy to be home.


I hope you're happy to be wherever you are my friends.
Have you finished anything this past week? A book, a project, a crop?
Have you felt like you've given your life over to someone else recently?
Are you thanking goodness for the weekend?

Big love to you wherever you are.

Love, Kate x


8 comments:

  1. I was just having a wonderful catch up on your blog ;) Oh my how beautiful are your photographs. And your children have grown so much!...such a beautiful place where you live. Ive been enjoying my needle felting and been working on new illustrations/ drawing for 2x Autumn fairs coming up...Sometimes its just the Ordinary things that people share through blogs is just as beautiful to see...good luck for your daughters future its always so exciting at that age...new chapters, new opportunities... My daughter starting secondary this sept, its still taking me a while to adjust... x

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    1. I love the ordinary, unstyled, real stuff too. Thank you so much for visiting CR, I hope you have a wonderful weekend. xx

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  2. What a thoughtful family you are, how special must your girl feel having you do that to support her through this horrendous time. I can't imagine how you must have felt, not at home yet not on holidays either.
    Those wattles are divine, sneezy but so so beautiful.
    I'm trying to be grateful for where I am, not always easy but then the important things are often the hard things.
    I haven't enjoyed weekends much lately, not sure why. Perhaps that too relates to my lack of gratitude.
    I loved your inst stories today inside your studio.
    Cheers Kate

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    1. Thank you lovely Kate. I can't imagine how people with allergies to the wattle are surviving this spring, it's everywhere!! I hope this weekend surprises you and you find yourself really enjoying things. xx

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  3. The wattle is beautiful. What a week my SIL Nola and I have had. We have just completed a 3 day gansey knitting course on the Isle of Skye and are now on the ferry sailing to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands for Wool Week. We are in for a great adventure. I am currently surrounded on the ferry with women knitting all types of garments and accessories. Xx

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    1. Lenore! This sounds amazing! Have you shared pictures or words anywhere (your own blog? Insta??) I have been dreaming of doing something just like what you have described.

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  4. Thank you. My Saturday would not be complete without you. Am I selfish to want to hear and see more?
    Julie

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  5. I can relate to feeling like your own life is "on hold". As mothers we get busy caring for those around us and, like you described, I occasionally wake up and realise that my life had been totally revolving around other people's needs and remind myself to make time for me! I make an effort to find time for myself but sometimes the world has other ideas.
    Lately, my life has been given over to other things. I would much rather be following my crochet passions and having a simple home life but I've been taken over by having so many of my community supports challenged and under threat. It's been a continual fight for the past 2 years and the current ones are the NDIS and transport; i.e. to stop the SA State Government from taking my local railway station away. As a wheelchair user, that rail service is my connection to the community, to be able to travel independently and to lose it, I will be stuck at home again. It is depressing just thinking about it so I began a petition last year and the community has come together to fight the government for what it's worth. I figure that unless I give it every fight that I have, I have no right to complain about the outcome if it is a bad one. The petition is on Change.org (Save Tonsley Station). The only problem is that my life is often at the mercy of developments related to the campaign. I am looking forward to getting over these mountains and reclaiming my life for me on the other side.

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Thanks so much for stopping by...

I do read every single comment you leave and appreciate it very much, but I should let you know that I can be a wee bit on the useless side when replying to comments, that's just me, everyday life sometimes gets in the way....so I'll apologise now, just in case.

Kate XX

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