This is where we're leaving. The nation's capital. This building is both my office and Puddleduck's second home. She's grown from a tiny little banshee with screams capable of causing the marble walls to shake to a confident, happy toddler behind this grand facade. The security guards know her and the cafeteria staff have her babycino waiting for her at morning tea time - or at least they did before the contract changed providers, but that's a whole other story (without a happy ending).She was a foundation member of the Parliament House childcare centre and has truly blossomed there. From the hungry banshee (I'd visit every two hours to breastfeed her) who spent sitting weeks in daycare and non-sitting weeks in the office with me to the running, jumping, leaping chatterbox who now spends four days a week with her daycare friends, she's grown up considering it her own personal playground.
Mr Puddleduck and I are both North Queenslanders through and through so the seasons completely enchant us. In Canberra it is uncanny the way the leaves turn orange smack bang on the first day of March heralding the arrival of autumn and while winter threatens all through May it's not until 1 June that it settles in.
Then there's our house. Over the five years we've lived there it's evolved into a real expression of us and what we love. Bookshelves galore, wooden floors, a wine cellar and a deck built with our own fair hands. Well, Mr Puddleduck's fair hands. Puddleduck and I offered our usual helpful suggestions and assumed 'site management' roles. At the end of our street is a lake inhabited by all kinds of bird life and even on freezing cold winter mornings nothing gives Puddleduck greater pleasure than a walk to visit the swans and force feed them great chunks of bread. She positively dances with delight when the swans arrive with cygnets in tow.
Hmmmm. I'm beginning to wonder if we really hav taken leave of our senses to contemplate leaving all this behind?
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