When I was 27 I bought a 20-acre property in North Central Victoria. It had a mudbrick house and a separate mudbrick 'artist's' studio on it, a very big dam, an old orchard and vege patch and a few other interesting bits and pieces. It was hidden in a state forest at the end of the road. Last year I sold it, sick of looking after it all while working full time and I had started to feel very isolated there - it was 15mins to town and 3 hours to Melbourne. I don't regret selling it as I do want to go back to WA and I knew I didn't want to be stuck in that particular part of the world. But I feel a bit silly that now, when I don't own that property anymore, I'm interested in self-sufficiency and all the rest. I was interested in that stuff before but I just couldn't work out how to do it. I realise now that what I couldn't work out was that if I was more self-sufficient I wouldn't have to work as much, meaning more time for being self-sufficient (growing food, looking after animals etc.).

So while this might seem a bit backward, I do feel there is method in my madness, lessons I had to learn, people I had to meet, experiences I had to go through, to get where I am now: open and ready for this new life. My resignation will be announced next week - just another step in the path - and I will send off my application to the WA ed dept. Even though I don't really want to work as hard as I am at the moment, I still need a job. And as the year goes on, I think that I'm not really going to be able to do the WWOOFing. To decide to do that is a brave leap and although I've done many of those before I haven't done them with someone else before. That is the scary thing for both of us.

I'm rambling. As I'd say to the kids - no structure or organisation! But I'm also four drinks into the evening, so forgive me.