Scouring the shire.

Even prior to the sale of her grandparent's property, Nay and I had started casting an eye over Wooroloo for other properties in a more suitable price range. Making great use of the internet we found many attractive and characterful houses, yet few within our desired parameters of an acreage block, preferably cleared or park-cleared, with a comfortable house within our price range.

Months after widening our search we spotted a beautiful refurbished railway cottage in the centre of Wooroloo on two and a half acres with a few sheds and plenty room for chooks and energetic children. Unfortunately the property, Orchard Cottage, went under offer before we'd even had chance to view it.  Months later we received a call from the agent to say that Orchard Cottage was back on the market after the original offer fell through. We immediately arranged to meet the agent as soon as we could and fell in love with this wonderful property. A modern kitchen, character, warmth and unseen faeries in the garden made it a special place.

We left Orchard Cottage excited and within fifteen minutes we'd phoned the agent to discuss placing an offer to purchase subject to the sale of our own home. We met him in his office in nearby Mount Helena with great expectations but were disheartened with the news that another buyer had also submitted an offer that wasn't subject to sale of another property. The agent chose not to present our offer to the owner and Orchard Cottage was soon sold.

We were saddened but even more determined to find our own piece of rural paradise.

A sad farewell.

My wife Nay (a pseudonym adopted for this blog) descends from early settlers to Wooroloo, a small attractive town in the Jarrah forests of the Darling Scarp east of Perth, Western Australia. Nay's ancestors had worked orchards, sheep and other ventures from various properties in the area since the late 1800's and her paternal grandparents maintained a ten acre property of paddocks and park-cleared land where Nay spent many school holidays.

Nay's grandmother passed away too young with cancer in the early 1990's and her husband took his final rest in 2006, leaving the property to their two sons who eventually put the property to sale. While it sat on the market over the next few years we continued to meet Nay's father and stepmother at the property for long cups of tea and picnic lunches and to share memories and laughter. My children, both too young to remember their maternal great-grandparents, made their own fond memories of the property as they spent the days exploring, imagining, getting dirty and exhausted.

The prospect of losing the family property and a foothold in Wooroloo played on our minds and we explored every option for buying the property, which remained financially out of reach. The property was sold in 2010 to strangers.. That dream was over.

The waiting game.

I'm sitting here in our family home in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia with less than three weeks to go before removalists arrive to pack up our belongings and ship them to the other side of Australia. My wife, two children, one chihuahua and myself will follow soon after.

I've been a commonwealth public servant for over twenty one years and I've recently won a promotion to a supervising position in Hobart, Tasmania. The career advancement itself may seem unremarkable but a more interesting story has been woven by the events and opportunities, both taken and missed, that have brought me to this point in my life. As I write about these influences over the next few posts you may agree that this move was the path I was destined to take, but will this obvious path lead to the things that I seek? I want a slower pace, more happiness and better health.  I want to eat and drink with enjoyment and breath deeper than I've ever breathed before. I wan't my kids to grow up with nature and be happy with who they are and what they have.

I'm inviting you to come along on this journey to Little Earth as I seek the true meaning of living and whether it is in my destiny is to find it.

Where is Little Earth?

As a play upon JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth where comparisons have been made to places in Great Britain (although not by Tolkien himself), I've used Little Earth to describe Tasmania, an island state of Australia off the south eastern coast of mainland Australia. As I researched Tasmania prior to making the decision to move there I noticed that many of the place names reflected locations in the United Kingdom such as Kent, Launceston, Perth, Swansea, Dover plus many more. At first glance the landscape, weather and historical achitecture of Tasmania also appear to have more in common with Britain and France than they do with the mediterranean and tropical parts of mainland Australia.

So what is a Thegn?

A Thegn (pronounced and alternatively spelled as Thane or Thayn) was a Norse and Anglo-Saxon term indicating those of standing in the king's or queen's service.  I've made a modern comparison between a Thegn and the position that I will fill in Tasmania as a supervising commonwealth public servant charged with ensuring the safety and security of the nation. I also think the name and spelling is pretty cool.

I'm of  Celtic and Anglo-Saxon stock (as well as Viking and maybe Briton or Norman) and, like many others of that lineage, have longed for the identity and bonds that those of more obvious ethnicities enjoy. As others look to rekindle their Anglo-Saxon and Celtic ancestral links through tattoos, artwork, travel and names, I've taken another path by taking an old title for this blog as I make a new home in a land similar in many ways to that of my ancestors.