All roads lead to…

…Brindabella.

For those who have been following my blogging for many years will know our old home, Brindabella. They will know the journey we took whilst there, the many hours of hard work we put in at our ramshackle farmhouse, the enormous to-do list we ticked off whilst we lived there, the place our marquee farm wedding took place…and then the hard decision to walk away. Making that decision, I had to make it knowing that we would never return. Matt always said ‘never say never’, but I wanted it in my mind that we would not be returning, to make a clearer decision, cut ties, break free and walk away. It’s just the way that I needed to do it.

If someone had told me that in a few years time we would be living back at Brindabella, I would have told them to get their head read! To be honest, when Matt suggested it, I adamantly refused. No way, no how. I spent a fairly unhappy year there, happy in our home but unhappy in other areas of our life there. But things kept lining up, making sense. Damn logic. Things have a funny way of working out. Now, we will be returning to Brindabella – to the place we called home, to the place we celebrated our wedding, where we planted the trees given to us by family on our engagement, the home where I imagined bringing our ‘one day’ baby home and raising our family as the fourth generation in that rich red Thorpdale soil.

It’s been three years since we first moved into Brindabella, making it our home over the next year – we re-fenced the yard, had 17 large cypress trees ripped out, spent hours upon hours pulling those roots out, flattening, re-ripping, re-flattening, pulling more cypress roots, sowing new lawn, we built a palatial chook pen ‘Chateau le Chookie’ , agonised over paint colours, sourced the perfect doors, rewired the shed, had the entire exterior of the old peeling weatherboard house painted, bought curtains and light fixtures to suit the Art Deco period of the home, not to mention completely overhauling the jungle garden over many weekends, new garden beds, fruit trees planted, all that. It was a home we put a lot of love into, and we left a lot of love behind. It will be good to go and reclaim it.

Brindabella was our ‘forever home’ once upon a time. I’m not going to say it will be again. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. Eggs in baskets and all that. I’m wiser now, we’re different people, traveling a different path to the one we were just three years ago. Gosh, a lot can happen in three years.

So, to Brindabella we go. Again we’re throwing ourselves open to new experiences, new opportunities, new adventures.

Cest la vie.