I find it so hard to explain to people how happy I am living back on the coast again. Perhaps it's the echoes of a childhood spent in sand dunes and beaches, the briny scent of the ocean, the moonah trees twisting away from the wind. A time when I felt held. And even though I am no longer a child, and one parent is gone, I still feel childlike here—bubbling with excitement for the potential of each day. A cycle, a swim, a surf, a walk, gardening—honestly, I wake up every morning full of beans.

And I get to share it with this guy. This morning it almost felt like Cornwall—grey skies, grey ocean, my man in his flat cap. I'm lucky he decided to live here with me, and that it feels like home to him, his blessed home, even though it's so far from England. The UK has changed so much—you can't swim safely there anymore, for one, which makes me so sad. Here, the water is clean.

While the weather was drizzly and cool this morning, it was still quite humid, and at least the rain chased away some of the crowds—although they were mainly in the cafes anyway. We feel so lucky that we don't have to drive back to Melbourne, or anywhere else we've visited on holiday—we live here full time.

Sqeeeee.

On Saturday, we went for a bit of a bike ride, taking the long way home from the shops. There are so many amazing roads and tracks around here—you can get quite lost in an adventure. Easy on an electric bike, although I stupidly went to turn and take off on a tree root, so I fell off and hurt my elbow so badly that it's still super swollen and bruised. Idiot. If it's not one thing, it's another with me. At least my hip's not hurting, or swimming would have been hard with only one working limb.

We had my mum and my sister's family (including my beautiful nephews) over for dinner on Saturday night. I made a roast veggie, tomato and bean Middle Eastern–spiced casserole, and we drank wine and listened to music. The boys had arrived early as Jamie was fixing the eldest boy’s car—he’d copped a fire extinguisher to the side door, meaning a replacement door (which my sister had found at a scrapyard, same colour and all), which then needed rewiring. We all jumped in to help him—poor kid. He felt loved and grateful.

We've also made the decision to spread Dad's ashes soon.

On Sunday, we did more DIY, getting the alcove painted ready for the wood stove to go in next week, and I did some knitting in the sunshine with a slight hangover.

I harvested some bush beans I'd planted toward the end of summer (good call), picked caterpillars off the brassicas, and we worked on the side garden bed a little more.

I thought of Dad a lot. My youngest nephew and I had some time to chat while I was cooking dinner, before the rest of the family arrived, and we were talking about Dad's music. My nephew is a great musician at 17, and last weekend he ran his own mini festival in Melbourne with various bands. He was saying how much he’s been enjoying The Stones, Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal—because it reminds him of his granddad. Granddad always encouraged him to play music, even buying him guitars—he was his biggest fan.

He got teary talking about Dad, and I said—how beautiful is it that we’re listening to his music and thinking of him? That we carry his spirit forward in this way.

Funnily enough a Facebook memory came up of an Easter a few years back and a bushwalk with Dad. Yep, that's him starting a headstand on a rock. He always was the adventure.

I feel like that's with everything I do here. Dad’s present in all of it. He would have loved my life here, been so happy for me. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that he never knew we moved here. His spirit is alive in all of us—enjoying our lives, each other, the coast, the bush, the music, life. It might be a life without my father, but it's an earthly paradise nonetheless.

I'm not even sure what I was attempting with this post. Just an outpouring of energy I suppose on this sublime Easter Monday, glass of wine in hand, lentil stew with mash for tea. I hope this post sees you as happy as I am, right now, in this moment.

How was your Easter?

With Love,

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