Australia to England

  How do you purposely head off the rails?
  Having a luminous destination that calls siren-like to you is helpful, ignoring obvious difficulties works, carefully metering out gushing enthusiasm is good. Being a little loose on the rails in the first place...
 Being told you’re brave only makes you pause nervously. When you really want to do something but don’t know how on earth to go about it, here are three things that combined to make the winning spell for me:
 Time. It waits for no man, especially the teenager who won’t want to hang out with you for much longer and is now a lot bigger than you are.
 A Sign. Having something happen right when you need it to that says- Go, it will be okay. Most likely.
 Imagination. When the pressure has forced you to choose and fate has lit the way with a day-glo thumbs up, I guess you need the imagination to see the possibilities and, keep imagining it all the way there. (Coz you’re gonna need all the help you can get.)
  And why? What for all this drama you make huh?
  There’s something I really want to do. And I mean really, in bold, underlined italics:
  Live in England.
  I’ve wanted to do it ever since I was a child. I want to do it so much I’m going to sell my house, uproot my whole family for at least a year (hopefully two) and take them away from friends and relatives, all to fulfill my need. I admit it. You could call for my guilt to come out now and show its face, but I refuse to have any. Oh, I’m incorrigible.
  If you’d like my reasons, I have a small pocketful; I’ll dust the lint off them now:
-A childhood filled with Enid Blyton, CS Lewis, Beverley Nicols, Welsh Lloyd Alexander and a bazillion fairy tales. Bring on the talking animals! They’re all over England right?!
-An English mother who just wouldn’t stop harping on about how bloody wonderful England was (suffering now the error of her ways as we prepare to leave).
-A trip there when I was 11 that left me not at all homesick until I was leaving to come back to Australia. Huh. Or perhaps it was anxiety that I had not been able to locate and run off with the Famous Five whilst I was there. It still hurts a little. Oh Julian, I’m sorry...
And so there we have it. Me with my quercus robur pangs and penchant for drizzle, my husband British born but long in denial (mate) and my two sons, one keen for green, the other growling viciously and clutching as much social media to his chest as can be charged with a British- Australian adaptor plug.
Ah, it’s gonna be fun...isn’t it?