We are shipping out

Indeed with are, we are heading home at the end of August. We hope to fit in a few more locations before we go but our main goal with be to get back and settle in Bathurst. It has been the most amazing adventure and we will certain miss everybody we have come to love here. We will still keep the blog going for those not in Bathurst, obviously but we will be remarkable more boring from now on. Though I am sure some will be thinking that, that happened when we had kids and stop jetting everywhere. From our three years here we have gained many countries in our passport, France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Scotland though we had been there before. Italy, have not seen nearly enough of that famous place. Singapore though Ben doesn't count that as it would have been easy from Australia.

We have loved growing our own food, singing carols in the freezing dark around our gorgeous village. Getting to know the neighbours has been an amazing and wonderful thing. We have celebrated with the folks here, done easter egg hunts, we have had harvest festivals, the fetes have been excellent. We have loved having the horses near by, walking to the duck pond to feed them. Collecting berries and other fruits for making jam or just yumming up on our way around the place. We will miss the great friends we have made here but we hope to keep in the coming years as with any luck we will be able to visit once a year. Kingston has truely been our home as we have gardened and weathered through three years. We won't miss all the colds or the dark winters, though I loved the cold and the dramatic changes in the seasons. Watching the dead world come alive again after months of dark. It is like an explosion of leaves and blossoms as the plants reclaim the landscape about us. The animals return and mud shrinks back into beds of bulbs in a riot of colour and smell. Summer sees all the light starved folk out frying in the sun, red English on each patch of lawn, be dammed those cancer spots. The land comes alive with festivals, fetes and drama as shakespeare clad folk walk amongst the market hailing us to their performace. The sun is eternal in these full and powerful months of summer. Yet autumn and winter is not without its romance and charm as the leaves go from blinding greens to the blaze of firely tones and then of course all fall in a heap upon the ground. It is a time to gather all the goodies that the summer has given, the fruits are brought in and saved. New wellies are walked in for the mud will return. Singing comes back as the students return to the ancient halls of learning. The cow is fattened for the feasts ahead and thanks is give in firelight for all the good bounty gotten. Christmas comes with cold frost and the excitment is heighted as the red robins drop by and stocks and lights appear at windows. The fairy tale ends with a lovely hot feast of turkey and pudding, carols and presents and warm spiced wine. mmmm

I think I would just give up January and February and keep all the rest. It has been groovy. Of course Ben will do his own less sappy sign off. Here are a few pics of us here and around the village.