The world is my oyster - where to go?

We have been living and working overseas in various countries for about 10 years, and now we could go ... anywhere (almost), but we feel that we want to get back to Oz, and be near our kids and grandkids ...

So, on returning to Australia at last, we choose to come to Northam. Why? (That's what everyone keeps asking!)

Here are some of our reasons:

• Why not?
• We wanted to live out of the cities, in a country town.
• There are some job prospects for us in Northam.
• Our children and grandchildren are (mostly) only 1-2 hours away.
• We found a house that we like here.
• The more we look at it, the more we like Northam.
• We have found that people are really friendly.
• So - why not Northam?

So we arrived in Western Australia with nothing but a couple of suitcases. After a couple of days with daughter Jo and family, we came up to Northam and booked a few days in the 'Avon Valley Chalets' - a fancy name for some metal boxes!

One kitchen, one bedroom, and so so so cold after Malaysia! But the reverse-cycle air-conditioner eventually warmed it up, and although it was a bit squeezy it was comfortable enough.

The view was beautiful, and the nights were quiet.

But we need somewhere to live for about a month while we wait for our house purchase to settle. Our agents found us a little old house near the centre of town.

 This old house was recently vacated by an elderly lady who needed to move into an aged care facility.

It has a fairly generous backyard - with no grass anywhere, just gravel and moss! - overshadowed by a large bird-popular tree, the traditional Australia rotary clothes-line, and a back shed that protects our new trailer and half (the back or the front) of our car.

The huge old-fashioned kitchen is the most important room in the house, a place where the family would have gathered. With the old wood-stove being replaced by a modern gas stove, the reverse-cycle air-conditioner keeps this room toasty-warm, and the kitchen table is where everything happens!

There are two large bedrooms - this is the one where we have our new mango-tree-wood bed! - and a living room.

Unfortunately both the toilet (left) and bathroom (right) require an outdoors dash. The solar hot water system doesn't do a lot this time of year, but the electric hot water booster provides a wonderful shower. Unfortunately the toilet does NOT have a heated seat!

One really good thing about this little old house is the Location. It's really close to the town centre, just across the river. And Northam boasts a special pedestrian bridge - a suspension bridge.

As well as providing a lovely view of the river and the ducks, the bridge wobbles about with every step. It's long and quite narrow, and there are special wide places where you can move over to pass someone - which is good, because there is nearly always someone on the bridge, often with a pusher or bicycle.

Northam Knights
We have a couple more weeks to live here, and then we move into our own house in Knight St.

When we were thinking of a name for the blog, we thought about the 'Northern Lights', and then 'Northam Lights' ... 'Northam Knights'. And our new house is in Knight St. So  ...

Northam KnightSt.