House time

  After over seven months of living in a tent, with small stretches gatecrashing other people’s houses, we are in our own (rented) house. It is totally awesome. Lights! Hot running water! Protection from the wind and rain and sun! And we haven’t even got any stuff in here yet-but handwashing inside in a laundry tub is so infinitely easier than outside in a plastic container.

  We saw lots of stuff-some of it was awesome, some a let-down, some surprising. We drove over 35,000kms, well and truly destroying any benefit of our six months of car-free living. We met many people, some of whom have hung around as long-term friends. Two tents were destroyed by overuse, and I don’t think I ever want to camp again. I was well and truly over it before we stopped, and it will take a while to lose that attitude.

  Right now I am being Housewife of the Year-keeping the house spotless, cooking endlessly, and helping the kids adjust to normal life again, and life without their much-adored daddy around full time. Travelling was both good and bad for them, and we’re working on the bad (like table manners, which disappeared somewhere around Alice Springs). I’m also enjoying our own company-travelling means you’re thrown into close proximity with many people all day, every day, and live your life observed by many. As a fairly independent, reclusive person this has been hard to deal with, and i’m revelling in privacy. I imagine my domestic goddess stage will last until our stuff gets here and I unpack my sewing gear, which i’m dying to use. Then the children and house can return to their normal state of benign neglect.

  I am now a South Australian, which i’m lukewarm about. The state itself is fantastic in terms of environmental measures, small farming and education, but the weather is shit. I believe those two are correlated, in that the worse the weather the more the government has to provide incentives to live there (look at Queensland-fantastic weather, shit everything else). The Husband is beginning a new career, here is the best place to do that, so for now i’m wearing my winter woolies in February and wondering exactly how much clothing i’ll need in July………….

  And that’s about as much introspection as you’ll get from me right now-another week of sleep top-up and I should be back to full speed.