Life in the outback presents many challenges; you can't get bread on a Tuesday, a broken school shoe isn't replaced easily, you can't hide on a bad-hair day since it's impossible to be anonymous. But one of the biggest challenges facing families up here is the question of education.
For such a small town, there is a pretty high percentage of home-schoolers for example. Many people here are unhappy with the local primary school; the teaching population can be transient, teachers come and go, and I've heard of one principal who simply up and left one day with no prior warning. And so, it's a bit of a lottery whether you're going to get a decent teacher for your child, since finding good teachers who are willing to come up and live here is not an easy task.
High-school presents an equal if not bigger challenge. The 'local' high-school is 80 kms away and has an equally transient teaching population, resulting in many families choosing to send their children to boarding school instead.
And unbelievably, I've just joined their ranks. This past weekend saw myself and the 12-year-old board a flight to Perth to settle her into her new school (a place on a Gifted and Talented program in a state school, a chance we simply couldn't turn down) and accommodation, an event I've known was coming for ten months now, but which was nonetheless as surreal as the days following her birth, as the realisation that life was about to change in ways I couldn't even fathom yet, slowly dawned.
When she was born, I had no idea what to expect. I wasn't even sure I could take care of a child - I couldn't take care of myself. But when she slithered into my life, bright, alert, with large, blue unblinking eyes, my entire existence sort of shifted, my stars realigned a little, a peace I hadn't known since I was a child settled gently over me.
She changed everything. My teens and twenties had been dogged by an eating disorder - predominately bulimia - which had left my ambitions in tatters, shadowing me day and night, never far from sight. But on that bright afternoon on Mothering Sunday in 2001, the bulimia fled out the door never to be seen again. Just like that, all those years of useless psychiatrists, behavioural psychologists and hippy therapists chanting self-loving mantras, were upstaged by a pink girl with a shock of black spiky hair.
And so she's gone. This morning after waking the boys for school, I hovered outside her door for a moment, expecting to peer in to see the familiar sight of her up and dressed, sitting on her bed, eyes fixed on her phone, muttering crossly, "why aren't the boys up yet? They'll be late!".
Oh don't get me wrong, she's always been hard work. Always infuriatingly independent, she's never allowed me to be the doting mother that the boys have. She is strong-willed with a burning agenda, never willing to compromise.
I see so much of myself in her, and so much of my mother, but added into that mix is a hardness and determination neither my mother nor I possess.
The first year of her life she never left my side; I refused to put her in her cot - she slept beside me - I wanted to feel her close in the night, to know she was safe. The daycare place booked for her - right around the corner from my office - was cancelled, as was my job, nothing on earth could persuade me to leave her in someone else's care.
But when her younger brother appeared a year and a half later, I saw a look of betrayal in her eye, and for many years I felt she couldn't forgive me for bringing a third person into our little world. I'm still not sure she forgives me.
And now I feel like I've betrayed her all over again. We moved to the outback to get away from the hellish fly in fly out existence that nearly destroyed us last year, but the cost is that, rather than DH living a two-hour flight away, she does.
So she is there and we are here and despite the four very lively boys, the house feels strangely empty. Every family has its own rhythm, its own sound, words, catchphrases, jokes or silly songs - things that only its members can understand - and the sound of this family has her voice stamped all over it. She's been instrumental in creating the culture of this family, she's the ringleader, the Pied Piper whom the boys have always eagerly followed, adoring her, hoping to be singled out by her for affection.
And now, for the most part, it is up to the boys to keep the traditions going, to leave their own imprint, to create new rhythms, at least while she's away.
This arrangement is temporary, I'm not willing to have her away from me full time just yet. But even if it's only for a few months I know the child I get back will be forever altered, brimming with new experiences and influences and that's not a bad thing, even if it tugs at my inner control freak a little. She's entered an exciting world that I will know nothing about, apart from what she's willing to share, and I'm glad she has that opportunity. I know she is going to cope just fine.
I just hope I do too.
For such a small town, there is a pretty high percentage of home-schoolers for example. Many people here are unhappy with the local primary school; the teaching population can be transient, teachers come and go, and I've heard of one principal who simply up and left one day with no prior warning. And so, it's a bit of a lottery whether you're going to get a decent teacher for your child, since finding good teachers who are willing to come up and live here is not an easy task.
High-school presents an equal if not bigger challenge. The 'local' high-school is 80 kms away and has an equally transient teaching population, resulting in many families choosing to send their children to boarding school instead.
And unbelievably, I've just joined their ranks. This past weekend saw myself and the 12-year-old board a flight to Perth to settle her into her new school (a place on a Gifted and Talented program in a state school, a chance we simply couldn't turn down) and accommodation, an event I've known was coming for ten months now, but which was nonetheless as surreal as the days following her birth, as the realisation that life was about to change in ways I couldn't even fathom yet, slowly dawned.
When she was born, I had no idea what to expect. I wasn't even sure I could take care of a child - I couldn't take care of myself. But when she slithered into my life, bright, alert, with large, blue unblinking eyes, my entire existence sort of shifted, my stars realigned a little, a peace I hadn't known since I was a child settled gently over me.
She changed everything. My teens and twenties had been dogged by an eating disorder - predominately bulimia - which had left my ambitions in tatters, shadowing me day and night, never far from sight. But on that bright afternoon on Mothering Sunday in 2001, the bulimia fled out the door never to be seen again. Just like that, all those years of useless psychiatrists, behavioural psychologists and hippy therapists chanting self-loving mantras, were upstaged by a pink girl with a shock of black spiky hair.
And so she's gone. This morning after waking the boys for school, I hovered outside her door for a moment, expecting to peer in to see the familiar sight of her up and dressed, sitting on her bed, eyes fixed on her phone, muttering crossly, "why aren't the boys up yet? They'll be late!".
Oh don't get me wrong, she's always been hard work. Always infuriatingly independent, she's never allowed me to be the doting mother that the boys have. She is strong-willed with a burning agenda, never willing to compromise.
I see so much of myself in her, and so much of my mother, but added into that mix is a hardness and determination neither my mother nor I possess.
The first year of her life she never left my side; I refused to put her in her cot - she slept beside me - I wanted to feel her close in the night, to know she was safe. The daycare place booked for her - right around the corner from my office - was cancelled, as was my job, nothing on earth could persuade me to leave her in someone else's care.But when her younger brother appeared a year and a half later, I saw a look of betrayal in her eye, and for many years I felt she couldn't forgive me for bringing a third person into our little world. I'm still not sure she forgives me.
And now I feel like I've betrayed her all over again. We moved to the outback to get away from the hellish fly in fly out existence that nearly destroyed us last year, but the cost is that, rather than DH living a two-hour flight away, she does.
So she is there and we are here and despite the four very lively boys, the house feels strangely empty. Every family has its own rhythm, its own sound, words, catchphrases, jokes or silly songs - things that only its members can understand - and the sound of this family has her voice stamped all over it. She's been instrumental in creating the culture of this family, she's the ringleader, the Pied Piper whom the boys have always eagerly followed, adoring her, hoping to be singled out by her for affection.
And now, for the most part, it is up to the boys to keep the traditions going, to leave their own imprint, to create new rhythms, at least while she's away.
This arrangement is temporary, I'm not willing to have her away from me full time just yet. But even if it's only for a few months I know the child I get back will be forever altered, brimming with new experiences and influences and that's not a bad thing, even if it tugs at my inner control freak a little. She's entered an exciting world that I will know nothing about, apart from what she's willing to share, and I'm glad she has that opportunity. I know she is going to cope just fine.
I just hope I do too.
