Thursday, March 18, 2010

How life can change dramatically, for the better.

It is truly amazing how life can change so completely within a matter of 3 months. Mine did. If you had told me 6 months ago that I would be living in the village of Ebor (population about 102) in the New England district of NSW, in a 2 bedroom weatherboard cottage we now own outright, on 1012 sqm grassy block with our own springwater bore in the middle of the yard and a large shed for my darling husband to tinker in, I would have laughed in your face. Oh come now, are you kidding me? Nooo.... way Jose ..... Well, it is true, I have lived in Ebor now for 4 weeks and I couldn't be happier. But 6 months ago ......

It was October 2009, our Cowra house had been on the market since May with not a lot of interest but we were hopeful of attracting a buyer soon so that we could move to Lismore by Christmas. This next part of my life has been covered in a couple of previous posts but suffice it to say that our plans were to live in a caravan on Loretta's land near Nimbin etc ...... you have to read previous posts for yourself unless you already have ..... ahhh, but things did not work out how I had imagined they would so something needed to be done.

We decided that we had to find somewere else to live. What would we do without a computer and the internet these days? Marvellous stuff. Within a period of 48 hours early in January, we had trawled the real estate sites on the net, found this house at Ebor, arranged an inspection, liked what we saw and made an offer which was accepted. It just felt like the right thing to do so we just did it. Probably a world record for the fastest real estate transaction. Just go with the flow if it feels right.

Anyway ..... here I now am in Ebor and I feel wonderful. This is the first house I have lived in that was not bought with the idea of resale value and it really feels like a home. Funny, Matt feels the same way too. I love the arrangement of the rooms and particularly the large kitchen. Sure it needs some work but that's OK. We love it.

I love waking up each morning to see the grassy paddock next door that has a wonderful old weather beaten wooden shed on it and the two horses that roam around lazily grazing on the grass that grows so prolifically in this area. God's country so we have been told because we are up in the clouds most mornings. Just down past the horse paddock is the Guy Fawkes river that flows by. The water is so clean and clear and you can fish for rainbow trout. All the streams and creeks in this area look so clear and clean and flow all the time. Such a change from living in Cowra where the local dam was down to 4% and the Lachlan River had lots of sand islands that all had a healthy growth of foliage on them.

I live in a small village and the only shops here are a petrol station with a small shop that does hamburgers and sandwiches and sells the local delicacy - smoked trout - plus a handful of groceries, milk etc. Then there is a small post office which doubles as a tiny general store. I mean tiny. I am talking about 4 shelves, one household fridge and one chest freezer. The lady who runs it (Lisa) is about 30 (who can tell these days anyway) and a font of local knowledge. We all need to collect our mail as there is no deliveries. I wondered why no-one had a letterbox when we first inspected the house. The mail comes in from Dorrigo once a day. On Fridays Lisa gets fresh bread in from Dorrigo which is handy. If you need a tradesman for a job around the house or you need a load of firewood or anything else, just ask at the post office.

There is also no garbage collection service here so we need to deal with our own rubbish. The tip is 2km north of town and if you go there when the council bloke is not there and use the side gate, you don't have to pay to dump your garbage. If however you have a large load that needs access through the locked double dates, you need to come Monday or Thursday before 2pm and pay the man. I have been using the side gate on off work days since we got here. Another tip from the lovely Lisa.

*sigh* Life is good my friends. Trust your instincts and don't be afraid to try something new if it feels right. By the same token, if something feels a bit iffy, don't do it. Happy days .............

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