The city of good sports

 You would think that at least one of my children would take after me and both dislike and be terrible at sport, wouldn't you? No, this winter we have all three doing sport and loving it.

Bethany is playing soccer for the first time and displaying no fear, she gets right in there. Last week, while I was at the WINGS conference, she was goalie in the second half and made many heroic saves.

I am so very, very thankful that she and Toby have their training at the same time and place as each other. There are many families who aren't that lucky. So, I am perfectly content despite the growing dark, cold and damp at the practice field. 

Can you see Toby training? Apparently he scored three goals and I confess that it wasn't the gloom that prevented me from seeing them, it was Lucy Snowe, in my book. The other parents were sitting in their  warm cars!

Jossie is still loving netball, especially as it allows her to keep up with friends from her old school, and Toby loves soccer as much as he ever did. I am going to dress warmly, bring coffee and not take my book out for the whole game.

Walking

Andrew rides to work every day. It takes him a few minutes. I usually ride too because it takes me around seven or eight minutes and that gives me plenty of time to get things done before work. Sometimes, though, I like to walk. It takes between fifteen and twenty minutes, which means more exercise (I have by this stage already walked to and from the bus stop) and it is such a pretty walk.

There are some very old colonial cottages around, but most of the houses are federation, like this lovely example.

Occasionally, you get an unpleasant surprise like this one. What were they thinking?

In the sun

Two posts in as many days! I am supposed to be cleaning the house, but after hanging out two loads of washing in a sunless corner of the garden, my usually white fingers are pink with their effort to ward off frostbite and I have them wrapped around a latte, thawing out. That's a genuine reason, not an excuse. See? Sunless corner!

Thankfully, the house itself is warm as toast with lots of heating options. We really thought we would be renting something decidedly unappealing while we build, but this federation cottage is very pretty.

I love Japanese maples. I must remember that and put one into our garden at the new house.

I have always wanted a window seat. I haven't exactly been drowning in free time as yet, but I can see this being a favourite spot to sit and read. So far, I have sorted washing and done the ironing there which doesn't suit the romance of a window seat at all.

Life is full of unromantic things, so I shall go and clean in the hope that I can settle there later with Charlotte Brontë (I am reading Vilette), as is only fitting.

Recovering

Recovering from the move, from the frantic marking that followed and then from the women's conference our church organises every second year. I have been running, it seems, and along with the fact that we didn't have Internet for a while and my laptop has been playing up, I just haven't blogged, though all sorts of exciting things have happened.

I turned forty for a start! I had such a lovely day. Andrew and the children filled my bedroom with balloons before sitting on my bed and giving me presents (including my fabulous Nespresso coffee machine). My work friends put on a huge morning tea of fabulous, all savoury food (I stopped eating sugar in November, I really must post about that one day), and Kristy came in with the delightful Sam! He fell asleep in my arms, I am the baby whisperer.

I also got two bunches of flowers and needed to get a lift home because I couldn't carry everything.

Living in Central is lots of fun. Everyone thinks we'll want to stay here but we're keen to get back to Estella for the long term. In the meantime, there is lots to enjoy about the urban lifestyle (in a regional centre, not a big city!).

In the mornings Milo and I walk Toby and Bethany to their bus stop. We have to cross the highway, at the lights, and then a busy road without a crossing, so I really do need to go with them. This was meant to be a photo of a busy road, but it doesn't look all that busy, does it? The joys of living in the country!

We walk past lovely old houses. This is my favourite garden.

As well as our new lifestyle in town, I am enjoying my vicarious trip through Europe! Back soon with photos of our house, really, it will be soon.

In and out

We're in the new house and completely out of the old. The process was long and arduous but we had lots of help. Settlement went through yesterday so we will never go into our old house again. At the moment I feel perfectly fine about that, it being the scene of lots of hard work of late, but there are lots of lovely memories associated with that house so I might feel sad later.

Now, what is preventing me from taking lots of photos to show you our new life is not unpacking, though we are certainly still doing that, it is marking. Marking that should have been done during the move. Brilliant timing. So, with a few very late nights I should get through this and come out the other side ready to enjoy our urban lifestyle. Until then, here is one of Bethany's drawings. I especially love the reflection in the mirror.

On the edge

It isn't often that I think we ought to be a defence family. Right about now, however, I very much like the idea of somebody else packing and moving our house. It isn't a lot of fun but we are ploughing on. We have a room full of boxes.

Can you see Milo at the door? I wonder how he is going to cope with the move. Look up so we can see your eyes!

Looking up makes no difference, he really needs a haircut.

It's has rained a little bit over the last two days. Rain on Saturday would be extremely inconvenient. The leaves are pretty though.

Tomorrow afternoon we pick up the keys and then spend our last night in this house. We have been here for nine and a half years. We're all excited about a change and I am hoping that excitement will get us through the next few days.

Explanations

It was a bit rude of me, at the end of my account of our brilliant holiday at Easter Convention, to casually mention that we have sold our house and are moving when we have not mentioned this on the blog before. It is such a slow market at the moment that we were concerned that it might take ages to sell and we really didn't want the pressure of even more people asking "Have you sold yet?" So we put it on the market at the beginning of February and, thankfully, it didn't take all that long for us to receive an offer we liked and we settle next Thursday!

We aren't leaving Wagga! We love it here and, in fact, are not even leaving our suburb in the long term. We are building a house not far from where we are now,  but far above the reach of the river. We have discovered the joy of living close to something we do every week day. Joss has been riding her bike to school this year and it gives her so much more time in the day! Toby will follow her to high school in a year and a half and Bethany later on so, given that we also have friends in Estella and have always loved the outlook of the suburb (it is less than 10 minutes to the centre of town but you drive through countryside to get here), we decided to build a more teenager-friendly house here.

Of course, it takes a long time to build a house. The people who have bought our current house are moving in to it so we can't rent it and stay. Rental houses are in high demand at the moment because there are many uninhabitable houses around thanks to the flood. We are very thankful that our good friends have a house that is being vacated by long term tenants this coming Thursday and they are willing to let us rent it and bring our dog!

The house is in Central (Wagga's CBD) so Andrew and I will both be able to walk to work and we'll all walk to church. It has only three bedrooms so Toby and Bethany are going to share. It will be snug but there are lots of advantages to it. This time next week, we'll be there!

For a while now the kids have been heading off to play at the ramps. I knew that someone had built some ramps in the reserve in the middle of our suburb but I hadn't seen them.

Wow, they are serious ramps! Bethany ripped her pants sliding down that one.

There will be busy roads to cross on the way to any park in town and we will be far less keen on the kids just heading off on their bikes. I'm not sure I'll be happy to walk late at night like I currently do either. We have that lifestyle, sadly old-fashioned and rare now, where our kids can just go out and play for hours, in the parks and riding around the streets of our suburb. We'll be keen to get back to that. In the mean time, we'll enjoy having cafés and shops within close walking distance. I wonder what impact the McDonalds around the corner will have......