One life: a tale of an Aussie girl in Rome

A journey always starts somewhere…

“Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.”
― Isabelle Eberhardt, The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt

The travel bug is contagious & thanks to my Dad who has been travelling for as long as I can remember, I too caught the bug.

I can distinctly recall sitting at the window as a little girl, waving Dad goodbye as the taxi driver whisked him away to the airport. I would remain behind the festoon curtain until the car had sped out of view and for moments after, I’d sit crying.

This is me ‘The teenage mutant Greek ninja turtle’ ready for action in Athens, Greece at the beginning of my journey.

This is me two years after the start of my journey…
Yes, I’m on my way to the altar…

The happy couple…
I was to learn that the pull & drag of home would never leave me…no matter how strong your love is…

My novel memoir is the story of how a young Australian girl came to marry a Roman and live in Italy for 10 years. It is a story inspired by an old box of letters I found tucked away in a cupboard.

I hope that once published ( hopefully :)) it will encourage other women and men to chase a dream and live vicariously, for we are given but one life…

Mum & Dad were left waiting at the window for 10 years until I came home…

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Why being ‘Country Touched’ means more

Leaving behind the eternal city…

As an adjunct to yesterday’s blog ‘Country Touched’ I thought it opportune to talk about how I came to spend a year in Tasmania.
After much deliberation and careful planning which included selling our apartment in Rome, giving up our jobs (we were both self employed) and with a six year old and a babe in arms we took on the high spirited challenge to come to Australia to live permanently. We brought some worldy possessions with us in a container which arrived 6 weeks after us. Fortunately, we were able to live in mum and dad’s B&B which was fully equipped with everything. It was a great way to start.
For me it was a return to my homeland and for my Roman husband it was leaving behind his.

It is not easy to leave one’s home. What remains is the residue of token moments shredded into fragmented recall of time spent with family and friends. One tends to live in the past constantly reminiscing about what was and what was left behind. Don’t get me wrong taking the plunge and leaving your country is because you crave the adventure and something new or different from what you know. At least that was what it was for me when armed for adventure I left Australia. But after 10 years living in a foreign country. Which was always a foreign country even though I did call it home for 10 years it was not the country I was born in or did it have my close knit family. After the birth of my son, my second child, I felt alone and depressed partly because the hormones had kicked in with vengeance but also quite simply I missed the simplicity of the simple Australian life. I was born and bred in Sydney but when mum and dad purchased a thoroughbred horse stud in the North West of Tasmania, I fell in awe of the country life and land every time I holidayed with my little girl.

So now I’ll take you back to yesterday’s blog and hope that today it may make more sense to those who had wondered where it all began or how it had become….

In Rome getting close to nature is impossible and when you eventually come into contact with it, you are in essence ‘Country Touched’.
If my first novel memoir ever gets published then I do have plans to write a book about my year in Tasmania down the beaten track because it was an adventure splashed with the exploration of unknown territory in a little isle perched closest to Antarctica.

Thanks for reading…