So we’ve been in this town for 4 months now. It can feel longer like with any immersion experience, but also no time at all. And from asking others ‘how long did it take for you to feel settled, like a local?’ the answers vary but the ball park is around 2 years.

The routine of school and work seams our lives. The kids are settled into classes and soccer teams. We are starting to recognise faces on the street and frequent the local gig scene that supports artists from Maleny and down the Coast. The Upfront Club was an institution for local acts and really rocked a Monday night but closed last year after 22 years due to financial difficulties. But luckily a local cafe took over the premises has now started live music twice a week. We bustled 3 minutes down the road after dinner, had a drink and a chat, Tim got coerced into a song for his friend’s birthday and then recited The Man From Ironbark for a lark. And we were back home by 8pm. Good wholey fun for a Monday night.

The school had a Cafe night awhile back and did a call out to families keen to perform together. It didn’t take long before Beau and Tim were on the list. Here is a video of the song they performed. Beau’s favourite, one he learnt at his old preschool.

Sorry, cut short hit some technical difficulties… Beau has taken up piano and is writing songs. This week he wrote ‘Sad Song For Pat’ about our dog who we are all missing a lot. My mum is minding him because our rental has no fences.

But not for long, because our grand news is that we have purchased a property here. So we are staying to get our hands dirty in the soil and watch the misty skies pass over head. I’m in awe that my childhood dream of green rolling hills will be our reality. The block is 34.5 acres, partly cleared with paddocks and the bottom end of the property has a waterfall with a hefty drop and a rainforest that is quite impenetrable at present. Quinn and I have visions of getting into it with machetes. Walking trails is what we want to create.  The neighbours have told me an Aboriginal stone axe was found in 1950s as the tribes used the creek on their way to ceremonial grounds at Lake Baroon dam, 10 km north east in pre colonial times.

Life has a way of working its magic. We hope to have a cabin built soon-ish for folks to stay. The neighbouring property is named ‘The Space Between’, a name I really dig. And it got me thinking about that place we often find ourselves in- between jobs, holidays, projects, life stages….And our tendency to mentally jump on to the next thing before the current thing has actually finished. Or even if the current thing has ended, the desire to latch on to something else immediately to calm our anxiety or quieten our busy mind, instead of waiting in that fertile space of uncomfortable unknowing until the next thing rises gently out of the ether.

We move in August so this is a space I’m wading in, looking at the sharp greens of the foliage and fog breath mornings here in the treehouse. It’s prettier than the ticking watch.