Life in Transition

A noticeable trend in rural Rodney over recent years has been the spread of small lifestyle blocks. Couples, many in their 40s and 50s, are choosing to leave their hectic city lives behind in search of peace and quiet, and a greater sense of community. In the following article, Gill and Alan Warren share their experiences as newcomers to the world of the “blockies”.

Our life on 2.8ha in Pakiri is in transition – we cut the umbilical cord to Auckland this summer and sold the city house to live full time in the holiday house.

The first thing we discovered is that a small house which worked well for summer holidays, is a tad tight for full time, year-round living. It is a treat, however, to have space and a lavatory after nine years holidaying in the caravan.

The land is in transition, too. We have spent 16 years, to date, revegetating pasture land into native bush with some open areas and exotic feature trees, and it is a pleasure to be able to enjoy these on a daily basis. We’ve nearly completed a larger-than-the-house red toy box to house the things with wheels – tractor, mower, bicycles, motor bikes, along with the cars, gardening tools and so on.

We are also learning to let go of the known hairdresser, bread shop, dentist and doctor, in favour of local services and specialists. We live on a dirt road so are getting used to a dust-coloured vehicle, but the questions remain, ‘do we wash the car for visits to the city or leave it dusty so it doesn’t look like a Remuera tractor? Does any one care?”

Friendships are also changing. We’re learning not to offer too many invitations to visit and remembering to make time to see city friends in their environment. Email certainly makes remote location living or holidaying more comfortable. Meeting new people and trying new options with volunteering in the community helps the validation process, too.

When our friends and family came to the rescue, when 300 native trees needed to be planted urgently prior to a long term business commitment in Australia, we realised that perhaps they do still love us and don’t think we have gone completely crazy.

Some things are still not quite sitting comfortably yet – for instance, the constant use of the car to visit the beach, library and supermarket whereas once these places were all within walking distance in the city. We have also had limited success, despite networking hard, to establish a landscape and interior design business in the country but we believe this will be resolved in time.

We love sending mail from our letterbox, the peace and quiet, eating fruit from the trees, vegetables from the garden, and seeing bird nests in the trees we planted. We have a place of retreat which is made even more comfortable when we consider the teeming millions in cities around the world.

And the visitors who do make the journey, nod off to sleep in their chairs after lunch or sleep in late the next morning. So we know Pigeon Valley is restorative. We just have to finish the transition period!

Courtesy of www.localmatters.co.nz