Come in, sit down and stay a while.

The photo above was taken in one of our most mystically magical moments. One which I can hardly believe took place – let alone one in which I happened to have my phone camera at the ready. The following sentence is one I can hardly believe is the truth. . .

“We were walking down the road on holiday in Paris”.

That’s it!

We were walking down the road on holiday in Paris! Incredible!

We live in a sleepy little Parkerville in the hills outlying Perth Western Australia, and by an amazing set of circumstances spent 3 wonderful days in Paris several months ago. We arrived on the Eurostar that morning, dropped our luggage off at the hotel and set off walking. Somewhere near the Notre-Dame Cathedral , on a little side street, those massive doors were closing on a hidden courtyard and everything in me reacted with intense delight.

How I wanted to run behind those doors, probably to live there forever – or at the very least sit at that glorious little table and be French for half an hour! We did not stop for more than a few moments – however since the rest of the time there was pretty much as sublime I did not mind very much 🙂

Here in our own little corner of the world, our seven little  Australians grew up – though they are mostly not so little anymore.  Parkerville has a school and a hall, a general store and a brook-side restaurant, a church, a pub, crickets and snakes, the occasional bushfire, and kangaroos just around the bend. It’s been a great place to raise our family… far enough from the things we didn’t want to do, and close enough to the things we did.

We didn’t set out to have 7 kids… they kind of crept up on us (which I will talk about elsewhere) and believe it or not, we do know how it happens.

I have loved these years though they have most assuredly not been without tears and difficulty or challenges in spades. What parenting journey is?  So for these reasons and more, it is my hope, prayer and motivation to write and share this life and its learnings – with you.

It is my equal hope and prayer that you will find yourself wanting, as I did when I saw that open door above, to come on in, know you are welcome, stay a while and return frequently.

And I promise you don’t need to be French.  Or even Australian 🙂

T