What brought you here?

I get asked this question a lot - especially when I mention that I'm originally from Qld. Well today I will share the story.

Ok back in 2006, I took 12 months maternity leave. After that was finished I didn't return to my previous POW and managed to pick up some casual work which lead into a relieving position for a staff member on leave. This was to be for 12mths.

While I really enjoyed working there, I realised that there was a high possibility of there being no full time, permanent position for me once the 12mths were up so I continued to scan the job market. Also, on the home front things were not going well. We had some neighbours that were intent on making life not too comfortable. This was resulting in a lot of stress and the realisation that perhaps this wasn't the place we'd like to raise a child.

Low and behold an add for my current position appeared in my work email inbox. It is quite funny because I recall it was on an elist that I have no recollection of subscribing to. Perhaps it was meant to be.

The position was a manager/supervisor role and I had not yet graduated from my BALIS - however I did have my LT quals and 15 years library experience. So I thought I'll give it a go. Let it be known that I had no idea where Bellingen was. My husband and I did a bit of research and discovered that it wasn't far South of Iluka - we had frequently spent holidays at Iluka and also had our honeymoon there. We always wanted to live there. So I thought it would probably be a nice place.

Well I got an interview, which I did over the phone and thought I'd totally stuffed it up. But then got asked to come and meet face to face. They organised for this to be done at Grafton so we wouldn't have to travel so far. We only had the Friday and Saturday as I had to work on Sunday so we decided that regardless of the outcome we would travel to Bellingen after the interview and stay overnight - just to check it out.

I got offered the job and we had a very surreal overnight stay in Bellingen. Reality hit when we got home and realised we had only 6 weeks to relocate interstate and put our house on the market.

Rental accommodation in Bellingen is hard to come by so it wasn't until the week before moving that we had secured a house. Talk about stressful!! But if it is meant to be then it will work out.

We have been living down here for just over 3 years now. We bought a house in Urunga which we are currently doing minor renovations to and I'm really enjoying it here. This is not to say I don't miss my family and friends back in Qld.

The hardest thing I have found down here is making good friends. In Qld I had a really supportive mother's group and some library professionals that are good friends. I miss my regular interaction with these people and am yet to find the same network here.

I don't miss the traffic, pollution, dodgy neighbours, constant road works (although with any luck we will be having some road works in the near future to relocate the highway from our town), shopping (ok I miss it a little bit) and crowds.

So this is how I got to be where I am. I am heading up to Qld, with my daughter for a holiday today - which is why I am up at 5am. I will emerse myself in city life and enjoy it while I'm there. I have a packed schedule to ensure I catch up with family and friends - especially those I missed last year due to the floods - yes I was in Qld during the floods last year but that's a whole other story. And then I will return to my haven here and think how lucky I am to live here.

So how did you get to where you are now?

PS I will be entering into a place where I will have limited internet access so will try to post the final post for #blog12daysxmas tomorrow.