Well, I've just spent a few busy days catering for a community development seminar at my neighbourhood centre. Three days spent out in the community, watching on the side lines as a group of about 25 social workers and youth workers met to exchange ideas and to be motivated to continue their work. It was the last big event I'll help at as co-ordinator of the Centre because I'm beginning to slow down and transition towards handing over the reins to someone else. Last Thursday, I helped shortlist ten excellent applicants for my job. All the while I've been working there I've hoped that when I walked away, I would be leaving behind a strong and efficient Centre and a paid job for a local person. I'm happy to say that job will be a paid one when I leave; I don't want to stay, paid or unpaid, because I feel I've done as much as I can do there and now my priorities are here, at home ... again. I will stay to get the new co-ordinator happily settled and then just go in to do my frugal home workshops and to develop the series of life skills workshops I've just started.

Those of you who listened to my last radio interview will know that I'm working towards a book publishing deal with Penguin Australia. I am so excited! Not only to have the deal but to be working with Penguin. If anyone had asked me who I would like to publish my book, in a spit second I would have said "Penguin". They are a company who have supported great authors, and writing in general, for longer than I care to remember. I grew up reading Penguin books and now, here I am. It's amazing. The proposed publication date is February 2012 and although that is a while away, I've got a lot of work to do to deliver the best book I can. I want to put my name to something that encourages people towards change, that teaches and inspires and I want a book that you can go back to again and again to find information, recipes and motivation. There will be days in the coming months when I won't be able to write here because my concentration will be focused on the book. But I will write as much as I can and I'll also visit the forum every day.

As usual, other things are happening here that I haven't yet told you about. The most important being that Hanno has been in Germany these past few weeks. The kids, my sister and I bought him the ticket for his 70th birthday. He's been enjoying catching up with his family and visiting places he knew in his youth, and, of course, eating all that German food he misses when he's here. I'm missing him a lot but he'll return in another week or so and in the meantime, my sister Tricia, is here now; she came up on Wednesday. She has been helping me with the catering and hand quilting a beautiful red quilt. It's been interesting watching the evolution of this quilt. She brought it will her in her on several visits but now it's nearing completion and has turned into an absolute beauty.

Today I'll be catching up on housework; there is laundry to be done, cleaning and a bit of cooking, but overall I'll be resting and preparing myself for the book. I have to organise my notes and workout a schedule for myself that is realistic and workable. I also have to apologise to the many people who have written emails that I haven't had time to respond to. I love getting your emails, and when I have a few minutes, I do reply to some, but there are so many, most go unanswered. Please be assured though, they are read and many put a smile on my face.

I hope you're having a peaceful weekend and that the week ahead is a great one for all of us.

Tomorrow, the Future Tense program on Radio National will do a follow up interview with me. The program starts at 8.30am and I think I'll be on towards the end.

This is the link to the interview podcast:

I've never been what you would call an organised person but now I feel a bit like a quantum physicist - out of the chaos, order emerges. I have found, through trial and error, that unless there is a fair amount of order and planning, and a changed mindset that embraces making do with what I have, I would be running out to the shop to buy a last minute ingredient or spending more money on bits and pieces than I would like. That kind of thinking is unsustainable and contrary to how we now live.

Now I make lists and plans for all the new things I do. Once I have them down pat, I don't have to list and plan, but in the beginning, it's vital. When we first started stockpiling - which is another wonderful form of planning - I had menu plans. Now I have a set number of dishes, that change with the seasons, and unless I'm incorporating a new dish into the rotation, it's done without writing it down. But you don't get to that point without the initial plans and working to them every day.

We have a permanent shopping list now so we know that we have all the raw ingredients for everything we need to make - from delicious home cooked meals to laundry liquid and green cleaners. We rarely deviate from the list and only buy more when we have a family gathering or visitors staying with us. When the items are brought home, they're sorted to be stored in either the stockpile, pantry or freezer and added to those areas so that older items are brought to the front and new items added at the back. That system encourages constant rotation of stock.


I have arranged my fabric stash in colours, have jars for buttons so I know where I can always find a button and have all my scissors in the same place. Embroidery cottons are contained in two boxes, pins and needles are in separate containers, tape measures are wound up and stored together and thimbles are lined up along a small shelf. It took a bit of time to organise it all but now it's easy to find what I need and as I am sewing fairly often, and sometimes need running repairs quickly, it saves time and the frustration of searching.


I'm not obsessed with having everything in the exact place. I'm flexible and will return things to their rightful place when I can, not because I must have order, but because it's easier that way. Once that order is established, you'll find you'll slip into a natural rhythm with your work. You won't be constantly interrupted by looking for something you need, with everything in it's own place, your rhythm will take you through the day, you'll be mindful of what you're doing and get everything done that needs doing.


If you've not yet organised yourself or you home, or if you have but you keep slipping backwards, I encourage you to do it again and when a few things start becoming untidy or are found away from where they should be, take a small amount of time to set everything right again. Being organised, without being obsessive about it, will help you maintain your home and your sanity. And even if you believe yourself to be a chaotic or unorganised person, order, planning and organisation are just new skills to learn that will help you live to the plan you have for yourself. Are you good at organising yourself? Tell me what your tricks are.

I have written here in the past about the satisfaction Hanno and I feel by being independent. For us, independence means that we're able to look after ourselves well, choose what we'll do with our time every day, and if there was a disaster here and we were cut off from the shops, or water, or electricity, we'd happily stay afloat for months before we'd need assistance. But we also know that to remain independent in the long term, we need to be a part of an inclusive and supportive community. No matter how smart and capable you are, there will always be a time you need help and will have to rely on others to get you through. If you're part of a supportive community you're more likely to maintain your independence, albeit within the framework of interdependence.

There is another important element here to consider as well. No one can do everything. There are very few of us who could learn every skill, have access to all the raw ingredients, give the time to making everything from scratch and still have time for the sweet enjoyment this way of living brings. So there will be common sense trade offs along the way. You don't know how to make soap? Fine, barter good soap from a local trader and trade something you have that s/he needs. You don't have the land to grow a garden? Not a problem, barter your knitting, sewing, car maintenance, lawn mowing, jam making, sour dough services to a local vegetable gardener who doesn't have your skills. Need eggs but your local government authority doesn't allow you to keep chickens? Who cares, trade the honey from your bees, your homemade soap or laundry liquid for eggs. There are any number of trades you could come up with, or you could buy what you need from local people and help keep you local economy strong and robust.

Your currency here, just as in many other circumstances, are your life skills. Learning how to make a lot of what you need will help put you in a position to barter those skills to get the items you have neither the time nor inclination to make yourself. But you need to be part of a healthy community to know who to barter with.

This type of community doesn't just happen, it needs to be built; it takes time and a lot of interested people to do it. You can help move it along by:

• compiling a list of local skilled people (contact them and let them know what you're doing);
• writing an article for the local paper to ask if there are any others interested in building the community;
  
• bartering and sharing;
• passing on what you know;
• getting to know your neighbours;
• helping your neighbours;
• starting a car pool for school.
  

Communities don't build themselves. It requires dedication, commitment and generosity from many people. But unless someone steps up to start this, often it falls by the way side because people don't know what to do or even if there are others out there who want the same thing. Start by knowing your neighbours, and the teachers at your children's school, walk into your local neighbourhood centre and see if they have space for you to teach what you know. There might well be some people longing to make bread or soap, or wanting to learn how to clean without commercial cleaners. If you know how to do these things, you'll be a god-send. You have no neighbourhood centre? Use your community notice board. Put up signs. Call a meeting of like minded souls, offer to teach and barter. Whether you have the skills to pass on or want to learn them, get involved, start the wheel turning and be part of something important. Reach out, and hopefully you'll find others reaching back, and as soon as that interaction happens, you're on the road to real community development.

I see a time in our future when Hanno and I won't be able to garden as we do now, but because we live in a thriving and caring community, we'll continue to eat fresh, organic, backyard produce because we will barter weekly eggs or bread for the vegetables we need. That's like an insurance policy. We invest in our community now, we help support this most valuable and significant of resources, and we reap the benefits of being a part of it for a long time. This is long term planning but it needs to start with your small steps towards it now. Who knows what your community might turn into with a little bit of help. I do know one thing, you'll never know unless you, or someone who looks very much like you, starts that wheel turning.
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The story of the photo.
Recently I was asked by an English publisher for some photos of loofahs, both growing and being processed. I sent what they needed and they wrote back and said the final photos of the loofahs soaking in water with a little bleach added weren't suitable and could I send others. It was a particularly busy time and after looking for the photos I thought I had without finding them, I decided to take new photos. I found a box full of loofahs that were waiting to be cleaned up, and took the photos they needed. But because I was so busy, I just left the bowl there and got on with life. A week later, I was really surprised to see two loofah vines growing from inside the loofah, and even more vines developing inside the sponge. It goes to show that given the right circumstances, amazing things can happen.

It's been a wild and woolly weekend here with a lot of rain and wind. Our rain gauge overflowed so I'm not sure how much we got but Shane told me the TV news reported we got around 250mm, that's about 10 inches. It's been raining non-stop overnight, I reckon the rain gauge would be close to full again. I emptied it on Saturday morning. We just have to watch the creek which has been rising steadily for about a week now. With the rain, the temperatures dropped again so I'm back into winter clothes and rugged up in my cardigan and slippers.

It was good to be able to stay indoors and be productive and relatively busy. I've been sewing and making soap, and on Saturday I made a batch of dog food for Alice. It's a cheap and easy way to feed a dog good wholesome food and if you haven't tried our recipe for dog food and you have a dog, please try it. I'm sure your dog will love you for it.

We buy 1kg/2.2lbs of mince from the local butcher and add to it whatever vegetables we're growing or what we have in the fridge, but make sure you never give your dog onions or leeks. You could also use fish or chicken with the bones removed. The only other ingredients are some carbohydrates in the form of rice - 2 cups, and pasta - 2 cups, and I added a tablespoon of Vegemite, but you could replace that with peanut butter. It's just for flavouring so if you have neither the Vegemite nor the peanut butter, leave it out.

Use a large stockpot that will hold around 9 litres/quarts of water. Fill the stockpot to three-quarters full and add the meat. Break up the meat with your spoon and then stir in the Vegemite/peanut butter. Chop up all the vegetables, add them and the rice and pasta and stir. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 40 minutes. You have to make sure all the vegetables are soft as the dog might have problems digesting vegetables not fully cooked.

I store the food in portion-sized, plastic containers, and freeze them. The containers hold two cups. I make 12 containers, enough for 24 days. Alice eats half of one container a day, but you'd have to gauge the amount you feed your dog. It will depend on their size and weight. Alice is an Airedale, a medium sized dog and she's old. She also has breakfast.

It costs us about four dollars for the meat and maybe two dollars if we were to buy the vegetables, another one dollar for the rice, pasta, Vegemite or peanut butter and we've got a nourishing meal that our dogs love and I'm sure most others would as well. And again, we take control of the ingredients so we're not getting contaminants in the food we give our pets.

The closest I could find our food to do a price comparison was the 680 gram can of Supercoat dog food casserole (chicken vegetables and rice) for $3.18 at Woolworths. My guess is we would get two feeds for Alice from one can. So for 24 days, the canned dog food would cost us $38.16. or $1.59 per day. For 24 days of the home cooked dog food, if costs us $7, or 30 cents per day. One year's supply of the canned dog food would cost us $580.35 per year; one year's supply of the home cooked dog food costs $110. This is a saving of $470.35 per year. Alice is 13 years old so that saving for us in her lifetime, so far, is $6115. I would much rather have that money in my pocket than in the hands of a huge corporation. It proves once again that these small steps, the steps that only take us a bit of time and effort, can help us live well without buying into the convenience food market. You might not have thought of canned dog food as convenience food, but that is what it is. Minor adjustments could have your dog eating home cooking, which will keep him/her healthy and well nourished for many years. I wonder how much we've saved on vet bills in that time. Hmmmmm.

I received an email recently from a woman who has developed a phobia about cooking from scratch, particularly when it involves cooking meat. This is part of her email:

"Meat is a particular issue. If I don't use it on the day of purchase I HAVE to freeze it or I think it will go off but then I worry that it has not defrosted properly before cooking so I'm going to kill us all anyway. However, I can panic about listeria on salad if there is no meat in the meal. I have never given us food poisoning. I don't even remember having food poisoning."

In all the years I've been cooking, and in the years before that as a child eating my mother's food, I don't remember having food poisoning either. If cooks maintain general standards of hygiene, store food correctly, wash their hands before handling food and buy food from reputable merchants, the problem of food poisoning should be minimal.

If there is blame here, I lay it at the feet of manufacturers and advertisers of antibacterial wipes, soap and hand washes. The best thing to clean any home is soap and water, then dry your surfaces with a dry rag. Antibacterial cleaners don't kill all bugs, or even 99 percent of them, as the advertisers claim. And we shouldn't even be aiming to kill off all the bacteria on our skin or in our homes. Much of it is beneficial and if we didn't have it around us, we wouldn't be able to digest our food and our immune systems would be compromised.


These are simple steps that will help you deliver healthy food to your family.

• Always wash your hands before handling food and frequently while preparing food.
• Wipe your preparation area down with soap and water and dry with a dry rag before and after food prep.
  
• Wash your hands after you handle meat, fish or chicken.
• Use a brightly coloured board chopping board for meat, fish and chicken only.
• Keep meat on the bottom shelf of the fridge so any drips don't land on food sitting underneath it.
• Defrost meat in the fridge, on the bottom shelf.
• Keep meat in the fridge until you need to cook it.
• Avoid contact between cooked and uncooked food.
• When meat is cooked, serve it straight away.
  
• Buy fresh food that is in season.
• Know where your food comes from. I believe fruit and vetgetables from a market is superior to that in a supermarket. Ask the market seller where s/he gets the produce from and how old it is.
• Get to know your butcher. A local butcher is more likely to be able to tell you where the meat comes from. Our local butcher sells local meat. The fewer miles your food has travelled to get to you, the better.
• When you get the food home, store it correctly.
• Change your dishcloths and tea towels daily.
  

While it is debilitating to have a phobia such as this, I believe it can be overcome by following these simple rules and remembering what you told me in the email: "I have never given us food poisoning. I don't even remember having food poisoning."

What you're already doing is effective and safe. Pat yourself on the back, get rid of your antibacterial wipes, continue to prepare food in a safe and sensible way, and don't watch those stupid commercials about antibacterial cleaning. I guess we all have to believe in ourselves too. Remember, there are good bacteria as well as the bad stuff and going by your record of never having food poisoning, I'd say you're doing the right things, you just have to believe you are.

ADDITIONAL READING
From Australian ABC
News in Science

There are certain times of the year and certain tasks we do here that almost define how we live. Spring is one of those times. The beginning of spring sets the tone for what will follow and even though it's not the beginning of the year, it feels like everything is new and we're set, ready to start. Where we live in the sub tropics, it's sometimes difficult to tell the seasons apart; we seem to have cool and warm and not much in between. But since we've been living our lives closer to the rhythms of the natural world and no longer by the ticking of a clock or the turn of a calendar's page, we're in accord with the seasons and acutely aware of what each of them brings us.

Every time Spring comes around I feel like I must throw open all doors, throw out old ideas and start afresh. To do otherwise, or worse still, to ignore it, would be against nature. This time of year, ladies and gentlemen, is for renewal, growth and planning for what will follow.

One of the things I did last weekend in my Spring frenzy was to re-pot several hanging baskets that used to hang on the front verandah. I got lazy with them and when most of my time was taken with other more food focused gardening tasks, I let them go and finally removed them when they started to look daggy and sad. Then I came to my senses and realised they gave me a lot of pleasure and the front verandah wasn't the same without the lushness they brought. I had to replace a few of the plants, so they're not at the lush stage yet, but they will be, and I won't neglect them again.

That tall spindly tree in the photo above is a soap tree which we'll be planting in the garden in Autumn to replace a camphor laurel. My good friend Beverly Hand and her family will help Hanno with the huge task of slowly removing the camphor laurel, which is a pest tree in the area, and replacing it with the soap tree. When some growth has been made, we'll under plant with tree ferns.

I could only have been open to that idea in Spring but now it seems like the perfect plan and I'm looking forward to seeing it in the ground and helping it grow to its full magnificence.

The photo above is of our driveway out to the one lane track that leads to our town. It's quiet here, we live in a cul-de-sac, so we usually only have the cars of people who live here driving down our street. But the further you drive or walk away from our home, the busier it becomes and the closer you are to our community.

I spent the past couple of days out in the community with colleagues I now call friends, working in our neighbourhood centre. Yesterday afternoon, Fiona came into my office and whispered: "There are babies on the verandah. Come and look." We went out and there, fast asleep in their pram, were two, tiny, two week old baby girls. They're the daughters of an indigenous couple who visit us sometimes and there they were, with their babies, and their grandfather, and aunties. Fiona asked the dad if we could hold the babies, and he carefully picked each one up and handed her, first to Fiona and then to me. Fiona is aching for a baby of her own, and I just wanted to smell the newness of a baby and to practice being a grandma. These tiny girls, born prematurely but as healthy as can be, slept as we held them and I couldn't help but think how well they symbolise this time of renewal and joy.

Today I'll be out the front again cleaning up the front verandah and making it a welcoming and comfortable place for Hanno and I. When I'm not sitting there with Hanno sipping tea in the mornings, I sometimes sit there knitting or just thinking about us and our life here. Our home is not fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but it suits us and we feel fortunate to have a home we own that we can work and be productive in. And sometimes, when I sit out there and hear the whip birds call and see the black cockatoos fly over, I am embraced by the stillness of it all and I feel like the luckiest girl to have found this place.

I haven't shown you around the garden for a while but the truth is it's growing like the clappers. We've had consistent rain over the past few weeks and it's made the world of difference. I've been pruning the tomatoes because they're madly falling over everything near them.

The elderberry is flowering and I've cut off three heads so far and have them sitting in the freezer. Has anyone else frozen elder flowers. I want to use them for champagne but I'm not sure if freezing will kill the wild yeasts on the flowers. I have no experience at all with elder so whatever you can share with me I'd appreciate.

The photo above is our rain gauge with 30ml collected from the previous two nights. Almost every night some rain has fallen so it's keeping the soil nice and moist. When we first moved to this land, the soil was all clay and impossible to garden in. So we started by adding compost and gypsum and have continued to improve the soil with compost, worm castings and straw between every planting. It's made such a difference and I'm sure it would grow almost anything now.

At the moment we're growing tomatoes, lettuce, silverbeet (swiss chard), turnips, garlic, Welsh onions, leeks, bok choi, cucumbers, bush beans and climbing beans, kale, potatoes, herbs, corn, zucchini, cabbages, capsicums (peppers) and celeriac. It's life affirming to be able to go into one's backyard to pick and choose from a wide variety of organic vegetables. Now is one of the best seasons for vegetables in Australia. What are you growing?

It was our wedding anniversary last week. Thirty one years of life committed to one person. We created two new lives, invested our futures in each other, and day by day, built 31years together, or 34 years if you count the years we've been together ... so far. It's been tough at times. Like most married couples, we argued about silly things that seemed important and we grew apart at times, but there was always respect and trust.

And that is the glue.


When I was younger I didn't think there was much to marriage. I saw it as a way of keeping the population ticking over while people were boxed into convenient couple packages. Then I met someone I wanted to marry and although I'd had the thought that "it's only a piece of paper", when I married, I soon realised that wasn't true. I have found that the act of marriage actually increases the devotion and the bond and when the hard times happened and I wanted to walk away, the commitment, the actual marriage itself, made me stay and work things out. I have no doubt Hanno had similar crises and probably stayed for similar reasons. And when I said: "for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part." I really meant it. It wasn't just part of the wedding ceremony that would soon be forgotten.


We had a very simple wedding in Germany. We had a party afterward at our apartment and invited family and friends. There were few gifts, no special outfit and no engagement ring. We didn't see the need to spend a lot and we needed the money for other things, like living. But the promises we made to each on that day were heart-felt and sincere and have kept us together all this time.

Over the years we've grown to be like each other. When we met, I was unconventional and impractical, always with an opinion and full of mad ideas. Hanno was a strong and steady hard worker who seriously took on the responsibilities of the family and guided us all towards a secure future. Now he's more radical and open and I'm more family-oriented and settled. We taught each other the traits we needed to have, and the kids taught us to be good parents.


Now I'm 62, Hanno turned 70 two weeks ago and it seems like we've come the full circle. We started off without children and here we are again, just the two of us, making a life together, and supporting each other through thick and thin. Someone asked me a couple of days ago if I knew the secret to a good marriage. I said that Hanno and I want each other to be happy, and there must be trust. Trust, it's the one thing a marriage thrives on, without it, all is lost.

So in this time of reflection, I want to pass on some encouragement and support to all of you younger than us and who might be wondering about the future of your own union. While there are some marriages that should never have happened in the first place, all marriages go through bad times and if you have the strength to ride it out, each time you do that, you'll make your marriage stronger. You have to factor in human frailty and remember that everyone has moments of weakness. As long as the trust remains, the rest of it will come back, given time and good fortune.

When you get that time with your one person, and look back at life from this end, the view is wonderful and enriching. Sure there were hiccups and strife, but there were also many good times, lots of laughs, love, affection and the satisfaction of working towards common goals. We two together have built a life like no other. We've become the people we should be because of our commitment to each other. A long marriage is one of the many things that money can't buy and if you're in one, you'll know it's the finest of prizes.

This may seem out of place on my blog but I would like to help my sister, Tricia, sell her home. That's it above and it's in the Blue Mountains, just west of Sydney. Tricia and her family have spent many good years there but with Tricia's husband dying a few years ago and her sons growing up and leaving home, this beautiful six bedroom home is too big for her needs. She is looking for offers over $930,000. You can contact me if you need a little more info, but all genuine inquiries need to go through the real estate agent. Their web site, and Tricia's listing, with a lot more photos, is here: http://www.bluemtsproperty.com.au/index.cfm?pagecall=property&propertyID=1420667

I'd been thinking about it for a while and as Hanno was away last night I decided that it was time to have a no electricity night. I wanted to experience the candle light, and the silence, and see if I could knit and write by just the feint glow of candlelight. It was overcast all day so by 5.30 pm it was quite dark. I started getting my candles ready.

I'd already had a hot meal at lunchtime when my friend Susan visited. We had spinach pie and salad and lemon curd ice cream with fresh local strawberries. We washed it down with a delicious pear cider and later pomegranate juice mixed with mineral water. So I wasn't hungry but if I needed something the rest of the strawberries were on standby.

It felt strange to have the house slowly darkening.

I loved the ritual of lighting the candles and by the time all were aglow, the room looked wonderful. There was to be no music, no TV, no computer and no light. I didn't turn off the electricity because the fridge and freezer were still operating but I didn't turn anything on. I had one candle holder with a handle that I carried around with me so I didn't bump into the walls.

I took a few of the candles and placed them on the table near my knitting chair and sat there for about an hour, knitting. I didn't hear anything except at one point a train went by in the distance and I knew people were coming home from work in the city. I wondered what they would think of a woman sitting alone in a room lit only by candles, knitting away like it was the most normal thing.

Then I took about half an hour to write a letter using ink and paper. It was to an old friend of mine who doesn't have (nor want) a computer. I love using pen and ink to write, so this was very enjoyable. I could hear the pen scraping over the paper as the flickering candle shed golden light for me to write.


The photos are quite dark but it was easy to see around the room, even without the harsh light of an electric lamp. I amazes me now just how bright our normal nights are with much more light that we really need. I wonder what our ancestors would think of us now with extremely bright light available to most of us at the flip of a switch. My feeling is that some would love it and some would wonder what on earth we need all that light for.

What I found in this exercise in self discovery:

It doesn't prove anything, it was just a little peek into a different reality, but well worth the time I gave it. I went to bed early and slept like a log. I figured that my pre-bed time was very relaxing and conducive to sleep. In any case I will do it again simply for the pleasure it gave me. There are people here who share this reality every night and I have to say your night time world is more beautiful than mine usually is. If you're like me and usually have at least one electric light on before you go to bed at night, have you done something like this? If not, why not try it. It would be a great activity to do with children. You could talk or play cards or board games while discovering the beauty a set of simple candles brings to a room.

I didn't blog about this when we were in the thick of it because I didn't understand fully what had just happened. I thought it was just one of those things that you think about, it doesn't happen, and you go on as before. Many of you know that in those wee small hours when I lay awake, I think about what is happening in my life, if improvements are needed or if we need to completely stop certain things and get on with something else. Well, a couple of months ago, I wanted to leave here and buy another house. Yep, I did just write that. Me, who when we bought this land in 1992, swore this was the place I would die. Way back then, the thought that I felt so strongly about this place and that I wanted to live my life out here, just astounded me, and made me comfortable at the same time.

I love change. I love the challenges it brings, the news ways of viewing our lives, the heightened awareness and how new perceptions turn into a hundred different things. But just as our lives were very settled and a new grand baby was on the horizon, along came a gnawing doubt that we should be somewhere else. Where? I have no idea. I just knew I wanted to be surrounded by family and history and if we could find an old cottage in good condition in a country town, possibly in New South Wales, then I was ready to go.


Hanno was horrified. Nevertheless, he sat with me on many occasions while I talked about moving and why I wanted to go, he looked at a hundred cottages I found on realestate.com and even though he didn't want to leave our home, he assured me he would help me find that elusive place. We even travelled to an old coal mining town at the back of Brisbane, looking for miners cottages. We found many of them, but not in a town I could call mine. It all looked foreign to me. I was very happy when we turned the car around and headed for home.

Then I started thinking about our history and what we'd done in this house. I was still in my forties when we came here. We settled here when our boys were still teenagers; Shane and Sarndra married in our garden; I had my fiftieth and sixtieth birthday parties here; Hanno had had his sixtieth and seventieth birthday parties here. Both our sons celebrated their twenty-first birthdays right in that same backyard. We planted the garden, installed water tanks, skylights, solar hotwater and whirlybirds. We erected fences and built a shed. We have chooks and worms that help us live well from what we produce in the backyard. Bananas, lemons, oranges and blueberries are producing; the avocados we planted are still to feed us. I have been lost a couple of times and found myself again on our front verandah. I taught myself to love housework here. I rediscovered old skills that had laid dormant for many years. I discovered myself here, this house and this land helped make me who I am.


How could we leave! I realised the history I was seeking was not only all around me it was inside me too. If we moved we'd be walking away from our history. If we moved all the work and effort we'd put into this place would be left behind for others, while we would be starting again. I stopped thinking of moving, fell in love with my home all over again and thanked my lucky stars for the insight to know when I had it so good.

Our connection to the place we live starts the moment we stop moving but too few of us are staying long enough to reap the rewards of really knowing where we live. It's not just the house and every micro-climate in the backyard we need to be familiar with, it's the community we live in as well. Without our communities and the collective wisdom contained within them, we will struggle no matter where we live. Hanno and I hooked into our local community and we have been rewarded with a fine group of friends and networks that help us live well and within our means.

My feeling is that most people are looking for the ideal house that will help them live in the way they have chosen. The problem is that few houses are ideal. If the house is excellent, the land isn't, or the location is wrong or the soil is not right. We have changed our house over the years to fit us and that works really well. It's far better than constantly being on the lookout for a better place to move to, then realise is not better after all. Instead of wasting all that energy like I did, put down roots, discover your place, know it, share it and make it productive. When you have the time, do exactly the same with your neighbourhood and your wider community. I am finding all sorts of interesting things in my community that weren't evident at first glance. Now that I've stopped looking for something better I have the time and energy to make the most of our social investment here. And best of all, now I know I'm not going anywhere, I'm free to develop a place fit for a grandchild or two. Now, that's what I call history!