changes
Entry posted by swilkinson
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Just talking to Kristen (givincare) who is in a hotel room preparing to move tomorrow. She had thoughts that her son would not move with them some time back. I know what that feels like as I was seven when we moved from England to Australia. We were called "ten Pound Poms" as the Australian government subsidised the trip to encourage migrants and each adult paid just ten British Pounds.
We came to Australia on a ship called the "New Australia". She had first been commissioned in 1923 and was phased out the year after we came here. The accommodation was minimal, six in a cabin intended for four, men separated from their families, women and children thrown in together for the journey. It took s five weeks from England to Australia and we were really glad to get here having weathered storms, a strike by the ship's crew and a change of destination due to strikes in the area we were supposed to go to.
When we finally landed we were told how "lucky" we were. And I suppose in some ways we were. Australia was somewhere where you could pay off a block of land (50 foot frontage, 150 feet long) and build your own house as an owner/builder. You could still keep "chooks" in the back yard and some people also kept a cow or a goat or other poultry. There was plenty of work though mostly labouring jobs and you could get "credit" or "tick"and pay off your furniture as you earned more.
In the late fifties new subdivisions were springing up everywhere, forming new suburbs and work places moved out of Sydney as we did. People were making a new life here. Communities sprung up all around us as the post-war migrants settled down to build homes and have families. I got use to all kinds of food as I made friends with the new neighbourhood kids whose parents came from many countries, many different backgrounds. I think that is what makes it so easy now for me to slide into conversations with strangers, we were brought up as strangers in our new adopted land.
I went to several schools, had two homes and then my parents made another move, to the Central Coast, three suburbs over from where we live now. More new experiences, more new friends, different takes on life as I first went to the local school and then on to the town high school. Central Coast folk were a little more rural, a little less citified, a little less cosmopolitan. But with the beaches and the lovely summers and the ease of shopping in town or going on to the city two hours away by train it was an acceptable way of life.
Skip a few decades and you can see why we like a solid, unchanging existence. After Ray and I were married we had more changes. Ray changed professions, we changed houses and districts as he moved with his job but eventually we landed back where we came from, back on the Central Coast. We have put down deep roots where we are having been back in this house for 23 years.
But changes are again on the horizon, I have started to realise that the upkeep of house and yard is harder than it used to be. Particularly when storms break up the driveway and flood the back area and I am out digging drains in the middle of the night. Hey! I am not the young gal I used to be and maybe this is all getting too much for me now? And maybe our need to move is being guided also by Ray's needs as he gets less flexible, walks less distance and then only reluctantly sometimes.
Life changes. We move on. Like Kristen's son maybe reluctantly. But in the end there is no reasonable point in avoiding change. It probably will be for the best. But I have to get ready for it a long time in advance. I knew that one day I would marry and leave home, I knew that my husband would dictate that to a certain extent and in a way the stroke and his worsening condition will dictate our next move.
I just hope that when the time comes I will be ready. And like the move to Australia it will be a good move and lead us into new opportunities.
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