Farmdoc and I are on the move. Well, not exactly yet, but the decision has been made. Onemilebridge is officially on the market. Note I didn't say, 'for sale,' but used the euphemism, 'on the market'. I guess that expresses my ambivalence about the whole thing.
We've been in Tasmania for about 20 years now, the last nine here in Onemilebridge. We've built up a whole life in Mole Creek - friends who feel like family, community, a landscape that has entrenched itself inside us. We built this house, established a vegetable garden and orchard, fenced paddocks, released wombats, raised generations of goats and sheep.
I've done the best writing of my life here. We've hosted house guests from Tasmania, the mainland and abroad. We've welcomed visitors in good times and in bad. This has been a home with all that implies.
Often when we've driven down the driveway and I've looked across at the majestic Great Western Tiers, I've found myself humming that song from Camelot, 'If ever I would leave you.' Each season we say to each other, 'Oh this is the best time of year here.' When I know I'm returning to the mainland for a length of time, I try hard to fix the beauty of the place in my mind, to keep it there while I'm gone. I'm not sure it really works.
Now I think to myself all the time, we'll never again live in such solitude, silence and beauty. And it's true. It's just a fact.
But the time has come. Farmdoc's cardiac disease has shaken us and now we are moving to live close to family. Very close. A twenty-acre block that is across the road from Daughter Number One and a short drive (or a long walk) from Daughter Number Two. What we lose in privacy we will gain in closeness to our daughters and their families. We will be able to help them in their lives and be involved with our grandchildren. I will be a train ride from my father; and my brothers and Farmdoc's sister will be able to go for a Sunday drive and drop in for lunch. We have plans for volunteer work in the community and to continue farming on a miniature scale. We'll build a new house modelled on this one.
Onemilebridge now has her own web presence so she can strut her stuff for potential buyers.
