A maudlin musing from a sad, sick South Australian....

It's two years since we left QLD.

Firstly, I can't believe how time flies. Secondly, I am amazed at how I still don't feel at home here, how different it is for us here, and wondering when (and indeed, if ever) we will feel settled again.

My level-headed husband, would tell me with an exasperated sigh, "this is such a bad time for you to be writing this Helen" - can't you just see him, shaking his head, worried crease down the middle of his forehead etc etc.

And he's probably right in one sense. I mean we have just moved again and everyone knows how unsettling that is, not to mention exhausting.

Not exactly the sort of time when you find yourself "'tra-la-la-ing" around the house recalling memories of long ago parties where everybody you ever loved was all there in one place, or how a particular piece of furniture reminds you of that one time long ago when Great Aunt Maude sat there in her too-bright floral frock going on and on about how many happy family memories there are in this house etc etc etc.

Yep. None of that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely happy with the move. We are in a tiny little seaside town called Middleton, in a house that is bigger,  much closer to the beach and with so much more storage!!!

But what brought this particular blog post on, is that it appears some of my stuff is still in QLD.

This house, as I mentioned, has so much more storage. The house we just moved from, had none.

None I tell you.

Many moving boxes from QLD remained unopened at that house. Stacked neatly on top of each other, gathering spider webs and the distinct odour of all things damp, in the tiny corner of the shed.  They remained in this state until recently, when I in barely supressed excitement, unpacked them.

I expected trumpets, or at the very least a heavenly, glowing sparkle as I lifted the cardboard flaps. But all I felt was bitter disappointment that what was actually in them wasn't very exciting at all, and that in actual fact I had done without them for so long, I probably didn't need them now.

And funnily enough, the things I had expected to be in those boxes, just plain old weren't.

Where were they??

Surely I hadn't lost them, broken them, given them away? Had I left them unknowingly in a dark corner somewhere else?

Not possible, I decided.

I expect that one day they will be found. Right alongside many, many happy family memories and a little piece of my heart, that will be forever left in QLD.