Every day I think of things I want to write and every day I do not write.  Today I write.

Just looked up the quarry, the one we are going to move away from.  It's for sale for $9.5 million.  We have entertained the fantasy that if we won the lotto we'd buy it, thinking it'd be worth just a couple of million. Now know we'd have to win the big $20 million which is offered occasionally to even come close. 

Thinking about moving house is frightening.  I used to be so brave.  I can prove it as I'm writing this on an island continent in the southern hemisphere, tens of thousands of miles away from my birthplace.  I made the move in my twenties.  I had a large soft bag of clothes, a tackle box full of pastels and bucket loads of courage.  Now I have much more 'stuff'; a husband, animals and a crushing sense of responsibility and anxiety.  We wouldn't be moving except that I have made such a stink about living next to a quarry. If it doesn't work it will be my fault.  Part of me knows it will be fine; tiring, stressful, scary but fine.  Another part of me screams failure, regret, disaster.  I try not to listen to it. 

One step at a time.  The birds are off the verandah.  The verandah has been thoroughly cleaned and is ready for undercoat.  When the final coat is dry and  the windows have been washed, we ring the realtors.  Can't believe we'll do it.  Was watching tv last night and there was a shot of people sitting on a queensland beach.  That could be us I said.  And it could.  We can't afford to live on the beach but we can afford to live within easy driving distance.

I do believe that it is time to embark on the next chapter in our lives.  We need other places to explore, other people to meet.  Being closer to the the populations centres does have disadvantages - more people, traffic, crime, etc. but it is also ripe with opportunity.