a home of our own

It's been a surreal, stressful but ultimately wildly exciting couple of weeks involving headaches with mortgage brokers, negotiations with estate agents, numerous phone calls and emails with lawyers and a ridiculous amount of paperwork. However it's been worth all of the late nights and grey hairs as we have a house to call our very own, our first home no less. After living in rentals the size of shoe boxes for more years than I care to calculate it feels so good to be able to say that.

My dreams of decorating, furnishing, tinkering around with, creating a garden for, making a home- our home, for our family can now become a reality :)

It all happened incredibly quickly due to Curt being offered a promotion which involves a job relocation to Geelong, a city about an hours drive out of Melbourne. Once we knew we'd be moving out of Melbourne itself, it was an easy decision to base ourselves in a small coastal town about twenty minutes drive away from Geelong. Torquay- the first town on the famous Great Ocean Road, home to the world famous surf break Bells Beach and the capital of surf culture in Victoria, being the birthplace of the iconic surf brands Quiksilver and Ripcurl.

During the summer months it is a thriving holiday town and a more chilled out place during winter but somewhere we are very excited to be able to call our home. It feels like we now really get the chance to live the beachside, outdoor, relaxed lifestyle we came here in search of. We will be moving in at the start of October, so there's lots to be done and sorted out before then. As for the house, it is a three bedroom wooden board, beach style house in a lovely street. Pictures to come soon I promise.

Image from designlovefest.

following a dream: part 1

Or how we eventually got to live in Australia and how that's working out...

I've never shared many of the details about our being here in Australia- why we decided to pack our bags, leave London and head to the other side of the world and how we made it happen, but I thought I'd put our story out there in the event it may be interesting or useful to anyone else entertaining ideas of doing something similar or embarking on their own adventure.

I've always been a believer in getting up and doing, trying to make dreams happen rather than just sitting around whinging about how I wish I was somewhere else, doing something different. Of course these plans and goals don't always come to fruition but nothing ventured, nothing gained as the old saying goes.

Since soon after Lila was born four years ago, we had been throwing around ideas of trying out life down under. London had been a truly awesome place to call home for both of us during the previous few years but it wasn't the ideal environment in which we envisaged raising a family. We were both keen on a more outdoor lifestyle. I spent my childhood on a farm, running around in fields and making dens in hay bales and Curt was keen to raise his kids by the ocean in the the same kind of relaxed, beach environment he had grown up. We also wanted to see more of the other side of the world and give our children the chance to experience new places and people. And live somewhere where summer isn't always a washout (sorry, England. You will always have my heart but your summers are just not quite long or reliable enough). It seemed an ideal time to do it, as Lila was still so small and not settled into school yet. 

I had spent six months living and working in various places in Australia during my year of post-university travels. Curt had never set foot on Australian soil but knew the lifestyle and culture was similar enough to that of his native Durban in South Africa. The obvious choice within Australia was Melbourne as my sister had already been living there for a few years and was settled with a fiancee and a stable job, and if you plan on upping sticks to the other end of the world then it makes sense to be near family.

So we knew where we wanted to be, but actually getting here was far from straightforward. Of course we'd heard enough from other people to know that getting work visas would likely be a difficult, expensive and protracted process. Fortunately Curt was working for a big multi-national company with offices all over the world, including Australia, so applying for a transfer seemed the easiest way to go about getting a visa, and of course guaranteed him a job on arrival. 

As his wife/partner I could automatically get a work visa off the back of his. The timing wasn't ideal as he started the transfer process just as the first wave of the recession hit. The Australian offices suddenly dug their heels in as they were understandably wary of adding to their team in such an uncertain economical time. So everything ground to a halt and we were left hanging, unsure of whether anything would happen at all, told that the recruitment process had been frozen for the forseeable future. 

To be continued...

             
                    

Family snapshots taken on Wimbledon Common and in our local park in Winter/Spring 2009, a few months before we left the UK.

two months later

It's been over two months that we've been in Australia now. It's been a brilliant but utterly exhausting, sometimes trying time. Picking up your entire life and moving to two different countries within two years is hard work. Crazy hard work and even more complicated with two little people in tow. We've probably taken about ten years off our lives with the sheer stress involved but I'd always rather be glad that we did it, made our dream happen rather than sitting on our sofa back in London just wishing we were elsewhere, thinking "What if...." Thank goodness very young children are so adaptable and take it all in their stride. When I think that in her short life Lila has already lived in three countries and holidayed in another three it blows my mind. I hope these experiences will help them realise that the world is their oyster, they can travel wherever they want to in their lives and that anything is possible if you work hard enough to make it happen.

We've spent the past week surrounded by about eighty boxes full of all our possessions, trying to find a place for them all in our little cottage (which seemed quite a lot larger when it was empty), trying to make a house into a home. We got rid of the last box yesterday and breathed a collective sigh of relief. So how is the reality of the big dream shaping up? Well it's still very early days but life here is good so far, though not without some challenges. I love the vibrancy of the city, the short stroll to the beach and our beautiful, leafy neighborhood with its pretty wooden cottages and verandahs and quiet streets. Living down the road from my sister, and having family and a support system close by has changed my world. Knowing there is someone there to look after the girls in an emergency, to meet for breakfast on a Saturday morning, to babysit every once in a while, and someone to call just because you can. The unexpected bonus that one of my best friends from the UK moved over here at the same time has also meant chats and a cup of tea are only a ten minute drive away. Befriending other mothers at the park has been surprisingly painless and Lila has found plenty of play mates. The weather has been blue skies and sunshine- sometimes a little too ridiculously hot- up until the past week, and since then hello rain. On the plus side at least we haven't had to water the garden.

Childcare is prohibitively expensive if you're not a permanent resident and means that Lila can only go to kindergarten once a week at the moment, when she would love to go for an extra day or two. There's still much to be done though we are finally now with internet connected! I look forward to the day our landlord eventually fixes our dishwasher and I don't know how much longer Curt will be able to survive without our TV aerial working. These are all minor blips in the grand scheme of things though. I'm excited about seeing what the next few months bring and weirdly looking forward to a proper Autumn and Winter. An Auckland winter never gets cold but just means rain, rain and more rain and we didn't even get a chance to don a scarf or a woolly hat last year. Maybe we'll even make it to the mountains for a snowboarding trip! Still trying to get my head around the fact that there is actually snow in a couple of places over here...

happy holidays

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break. I'm excited about the arrival of 2012 and embarking on a year of adventures and putting down some roots in our new city. We're on holiday with my parents, my sister and her husband and therefore still in full relaxation mode, so I've been quietly mulling over goals, plans and dreams for the next 12 months but haven't done anything so hardcore as to set actual resolutions or stop consuming vast quantities of chocolates.

We've had the most amazing weather and haven't really made it much further than the pool of our holiday house and the beach, just been soaking up the sunshine, reading, playing with the girlies and enjoying having the whole family together again. I've concluded that the best type of holidays when you have children are definitely those that involve the extended family as you are surrounded by willing babysitters and actually get some semblance of downtime. Bliss indeed. Especially with the knowledge that the next few weeks will be super hectic and filled with all of the admin involved with settling into a new home.

Here's a few snaps from the past week...

our new home

I mentioned a few weeks ago that something major was on the horizon, and I can now share the news that we are moving to Australia! Curt has accepted a really great job working for a company in Melbourne (he is an Environmental Consultant if you were wondering). This is a place we've been hoping to call home at some point in our future for a long time so we're absolutely thrilled that it's actually happening. Melbourne is an amazing, cosmopolitan city, I love the creative, cultural vibe and the proximity to beautiful golden beaches and stunning coastline. Even better, this is where my sister and her husband live! Also, in an awesome turn of events, one of my very best friends in the world is also moving from the UK to Melbourne at the end of January. Hands down the most challenging part of being in New Zealand for the past year has been being so far away from family and friends so this will change our lives in a big way.

On the downside, we now have to say goodbye to a number of very dear friends we have made and spent time with since we've been in Auckland. I'd say it takes a year to feel fully settled in a place and in the past six months here we've really hit our stride. Although it has turned out to be a relatively short stay, I'll never forget the time we spent here, the awe inspiring places we've seen, my wonderful job, and the many good times with some amazing people. We have made some great memories to look back on.

The next week is going to be something of a whirlwind. We applied for our working visas a few weeks ago, expecting them to be granted in a couple of months however they already came through this week. This means the girls and I will not be coming back from the holiday to Melbourne we had planned over New Year. Curt will just come back to Auckland for a couple of weeks to finish up his current job and tie up our loose ends. On Thursday, all our possessions will be collected ready to be shipped (thank goodness the shipping company will be packing everything up into boxes for us too!) and the next few days will be spent sorting and deciding what to ship, fly with and leave behind before we set off on our little trip to the Bay of Islands for Christmas. And of course saying our goodbyes, the hardest of which we did last night, but we are already looking forward to lots of visitors when we get settled in our new home.

Images of Melbourne found here, here and here.