Creating a new space

I am in the process of selling the house that I lived in with the bloke for 38 years.  I am in the very fortunate position of having another house (with a mortgage) down on the Mornington Peninsula.  During his illness I hardly got down here, although his last request for an outing was to come here and sit on the back deck in the sun looking out over the Ti Tree.  Over the last twelve months i have been unable to spend much time down here because of all the travel I was doing.

But now I can see the potential of actually living down here.  I love the beach, whatever the weather.  I love that every time I see it, it is different.  Still and calm one day, stormy and rolling waves the next.  Blue skies then stormy clouds, sun glistening on the water on a hot day or the yellow of a sunset being reflected in the water and on the sand.  We have a dog beach near here, where dogs can be walked off leash.  Some days when the tide is out it has a wide sandy beach, other times when the tide is in and it is a bit stormy there is hardly any beach to walk on.

And then there is the garden.  Wild and overgrown from over a year of neglect.  Had to have some of the ti trees cut down because they were falling slowly.  I love the way ti trees fall, they tend not to have the drama of the crashing branches of gum trees, rather they start to lean, as if the challenge of remaining upright is just too much.  They lean into each other and form a crown of supporting braces all holding each other up.

Before some of that crown was removed there was not much light in the backyard so the grass did not grow.  Now it grows wildly, as if all that was hidden beneath the ground is suddenly celebrating freedom and dancing in the newly found sunlight.  I can appreciate the beautiful green and the waving blades of the grass, but there are snakes in that yard which the long grass can hide and I do want to walk through the yard on a cold morning without getting wet from the dew that settles on the grass leaves.

The beginning of the garden taming

The plan is a slightly wild garden, a small patch of green, a fire pit, an apple tree, a lemon tree and space for vegetables in amongst native plants and the occasional import like lavender.  I leave behind in Kew years of planting, a large paperbark which I have loved and has given us much pleasure, a fig tree that has largely fed the bats in the last few years but provided us with a beautiful shaded spot in the back part of the garden, a cumquat my dad planted, an apple and a plum tree.

My transition to the sea change has been slightly effected by two things.  The first is the process of selling.  It is a painful process, getting it ready, decluttering, a job done with the help of my two daughters who were excellent in saying no, you don't need this, no that looks messy there, so we finally have an uncluttered house that has new paint and new carpet in a few rooms.  And now the challenge is keeping it clean, so that it looks sparkling for the Open for Inspections which happen twice a week.  The second issue is I am standing as a candidate for Labor again, this time in the state elections, as the candidate for Kew a fairly safe Liberal seat.  However both of those activities require that I am in Melbourne a fair amount of time.

Traditional Christmas toasting of marshmallows in the back yard

Footnote,
the above was written in late October.  3 months later I have sold the house in Kew, Labor won the election in a landslide, I got a 6% swing against my opponent Tim Smith and I am now in the process of settling in to my sea change.  We did celebrate Christmas with the family in the sea shack, I did Frocktober to raise money for Ovarian Cancer Research and did an Instagram series of democracy dogs who came to the Early Polling Centre and waited patiently while their owners participated in the democratic process.

My favourite democracy dog, Arthur, one of Jag's mates waiting patiently

One more period of a few days to get everything moved out of the other house, a drive up to Sydney (with Jac of course) and then I'm back to my little cottage in a very urban part of the Mornington Peninsula. Just a 20 minute walk from the bay beach, 5 minute drive to what I think is the best ocean beach around with natural rock pools to swim in when the tide is out, and short drive to wineries and the beautiful hinterland.