Imagine a place where there are four distinct seasons. A summer, autumn, winter and spring - each with their own contribution to a stunning landscape.
Imagine a place where you can walk for a few kilometres and usually not see another person or car, maybe just a cow or a few sheep.
Imagine a place where the kids can just run and be outside for hours. They bottlefeed a calf, chase sheep, giggle at a kookaburra and eat like horses. Their favourite thing to do is chucking rocks in the creek.
Sounds perfect doesn't it?
We have just returned from a farmstay holiday, our second in two years at the same lovely farm. I go to this place and I can feel my whole body unwind its springs, the tension draining. I watch my boy let go of much of the anxiety that autism has him carry around. I go to this town and I want to live there.
I have long carried a little dream about living in the country. It's something I think about from time to time. I can picture myself in a little farm house baking a pie with the eggs my chooks laid, just like the cliche of all cliches . On a holiday like the one we have just had, I am utterly seduced by the lifestyle, the landscape, living close to the source of the produce we eat, all of it. It is usually by about day three that I start to look at the real estate websites or linger outside the window of the agents in the main street of town, checking out what's on offer.
Of course, a treechange is a much more complex undertaking than just packing up and going. If only it were that simple. Employment, housing, schools and services are the big ticket items that need some big thinking and planning for a move like this to happen successfully. It's always at these big ones that I stop in my tracks and the dream drifts away. In my heart of hearts, the Batsman and autism and all that that requires, in services and expertise and support, is what puts up the roadblock. The services are just not there for children with disabilities in many rural and regional areas. There are some exceptions but only a few. Every child in Australia should have access to the services that are available to the kids in the city but the tyranny of distance and cost means that many of the services are just not viable in smaller towns and regions. Rural families of kids with additional needs drive thousands of kilometres to get what their child needs and in that very driving, other aspects of family life are made harder. Not fair.
When it comes down to it and no matter how much I think I might like to be baking that pie in a country oven, I just couldn't make a decision that means the Batsman gets less - less specialised support, less resources, less. For him, I want it all. The pies will be made in our inner suburban kitchen for now.
And the dream wanders away somewhere over in that back paddock.
Until next time.
If you would like to know more about the farm where we stayed go
here. If you would like to know more about the beautiful village of Bright in Victoria go
here or
here.
