Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

It’s a fascinating and confronting thing when someone you love dies and the inevitable reflection on their life and your relationship reveals perhaps how little you may have known about them, of their life, their workings of their soul. Or when secrets or significant, but hidden aspects of their life and personality are revealed to you for the first time.

It’s perhaps an inevitability of death and life that we only ever know a portion of another’s life story while they are alive no matter how intimately familiar we are with them. Often we learn of facets of their lives only after the fact.

When we are young and those older than us die that is not surprising, in fact it’s expected that we learn much about the person at their funeral or wake. It can be one of the ‘joys’ of the rituals that surround death, that the life events and achievements are shared amongst the group, significant moments and anecdotes recounted, and the best and most human aspects of the person’s life are expressed and shared.

But what if you are denied these opportunities? What if the death of your loved one is complicated? What if you learn something about the person or their passing that doesn’t reflect ‘well’ on them, their life, your relationship or family following their passing? Or uncover something that you find hard to reconcile with your pre-existing conception of them? What if you discover a secret that you believe they would prefer remained so, had they the choice?    What would you do???

What do you do with such revelations? With your complicated, disenfranchised grief? These are the questions that I still seek the answers too. This is a part of my, and therefore his unfinished story.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

I remember the day that I first understood the difference between “forever” decisions and ones that could be undone.  You grow up with a bunch of adults telling you that you can do anything, and then that you can do anything but you have to decide what now, and then that you should probably stop fucking up your life, and none of it means anything, because you’re young and invincible and full of potential and you’re never going to die.

I was 23, and had just fallen in love with a married man.  I spent a Sunday afternoon crying to my mother because I realised that I couldn’t be with a married guy, and that that fact meant we would never be together.  I had never faced never before.

Of course, I was 23 and in love and so when I broke up with him, it didn’t stick.  8 years, a divorce, step-parenting, a baby of our own, an unsaleable house, and a two year affair later, I tried again and it did.

After that, I had to find a new way to build a life: a new one that would never bear any resemblance to the one I thought I was building.  I made lists of people who would look after me and see me as worthwhile when I couldn’t.  One in particular.

Molly told me that I could move in with her for as long as I needed.  And I did.  And she was my family, and her people were my people, and I survived.  Just.  Until I could figure out how a grieving woman and a 4 year old could try to be a family.

But this isn’t the story of how I put myself back together.  It’s the story of Molly and me and babies and circus and the death-defying preciousness of real friendship.

We met when I was 27 and she was 26 and we were brand new at the parenting thing.  We bonded over wine and a mutual contempt-slash-envy of the “real” mums.  We forged the kind of friendship which requires open-doored toilet visits in the middle of wine-soaked evenings so that the conversation doesn’t pause.  And we bitched about our men, and our families, and what the hell we were going to do with our lives, and we stressed about completely different things to do with babies which all turned out not to matter.

Gradually things moved on.  The geography changed, which meant that visits became sleepovers.  Work changed.  One of us went back to university.  One of us started a career, and then took another leap within it.  One of us had another baby.  Our relationships grew and shifted and shriveled and faltered and hers got stronger and mine ended.  There were other pregnancies too, ended and mourned in different ways.  And at every stage, we had to find new ways to relate, new ways to support each other, develop – or if desperate, fake – an interest in each others’ lives and obsessions and dilemmas.

The thing is that we did.  And we still do.  Her newest little boy was born a couple of weeks ago.  I was there (well, except for the bits to do with her bits).  And it completely tore me apart.  It’s unlikely that I will have any more children, which I desperately want. But I don’t think that there are many times I have been torn apart which I’m so very grateful for. I think, or at least she says, that it was something that she wanted and that was helpful to her.  While I would have done it, anytime, gladly, for that reason, on reflection it was so precious to me to have an acknowledgement that we are family, that trivia like broken hearts, or inventing whole new people, or being pointed in completely different directions pale in the face of deciding to love my friend.

I said that this was also the story of circus, and there was of course the blip that was the Irish street performers, and circus school, and our plans for world domination through acrobalance and absurd humour, and the fact that for me that formed the basis of my new community and identity and for her it was an experiment that didn’t go where it was supposed to.  I don’t know that that had a profound effect on her, but nor do I know that it didn’t: I know that it was another thing that we absorbed and rebuilt around and that didn’t make any of it feel too hard or not worth doing.

This started about “forever” decisions.  Perhaps I’ve strayed too far from that, but I don’t think so.  The lesson for me has been that other people can also make forever decisions for me, and while the letting go is real and hard, the re-assessing and re-affirming the connection that underlies that grief is liberating and strengthening and exhilarating.  This is my real life, the one that I never thought would begin, the one that I waited for.  It is happening, and it is beautiful and searing and filled with hope and despair and the knowledge that death is around the corner, tomorrow or the next day or in fifty years and the only things that matter are love and authenticity.  So I will continue to honour this connection to another human being who makes room in her own busy life for my mundane and profound anxieties and keeps trusting me with hers.  One day we will sit, white-haired and saggy, on a porch somewhere, drowning in obscene quantities of wine, smoking the cigarettes we both will have given up, again, watching another generation of kids squabble and hug and play, and I will drunkenly tell her again that I love her, and it will be unnecessary, because she knows.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

Once upon a time there was a man named Carol. Carol was a man’s man. He grew up on a farm, he toiled hard from dawn to dusk and he always had dirty fingernails.

He provided for his family. He killed his sheep, milked his cows and ploughed his fields.

And he loved to finish his working day with an icy cold beer.

He felt manly. He felt valid. He felt strong.

But he fucking hated his name.

He hated his parents for giving it to him. He didn’t understand why a regular, humble farming couple would give their first born son a woman’s name.

One day when Carol was driving his tractor, (it wasn’t an ordinary tractor, it had 5 sets of wheels on it-a contraption that Carol himself had made because he was asked to) he felt a pain. He stopped driving.

It wasn’t the average tractor driving leg ache, or shooting pain from standing awkwardly too long between the cows; that he often experienced during his long days. This pain was different.

It was a prickly, urgent pain deep inside of himself ..but also outside of himself. It was a pain that if someone was to ask him to describe it’s exact location he would have difficulty even speaking. Because it was somewhere he didn’t understand. And it was solid. And it was heavy.

He couldn’t say where it was but he knew it was there and that it was powerful enough for him to stop in his (tractor) tracks and have a big hard think.

This was not something he did often. In fact, he couldn’t recall having ever done it before. He usually just.. did things. Without stopping. Without question.

And now he was stopped under the sky, with nothing but open fields around him and a peculiar pain, and his thoughts came at him like a bull. They charged hard and fast.

He thought about how much he yearned for the ocean. He thought about growing a beard. He thought about how his grandfather taught him to waltz and hit him with a broomstick when he’d lose focus. He thought about how strikingly blue the sky was and how he’d never tasted sorbet. He thought about the size of his penis, he thought about stewing fruit. He thought a about life outside the farm. He wondered if he was happy.

And he thought about a hula hoop he’d seen the day before. It was propped up against a tree by the grain shed. He didn’t know whose it was or how it got there. He couldn’t even be sure if it had just shown up or if it had always been there. He actually had no idea what it even was. But he wanted to get it. He knew that.

Because of that, he smiled. This smile was a smile that Carol had not experienced before. It was a smile that he felt in his body. It was a smile that seemed to make the sun brighter and the air slippery and eager to get inside him to fill him up.

And then the pain stopped.

Carol looked around to see if anyone had seen this peculiar occurrence. Assured that no one had, he started his tractor once more and drove on to the machine room.

But things were different now. He drove differently. He began to notice the details in how he changed gears. He noticed a splash of what looked like green paint next to his seat. He saw a bulbous spider hanging from a small web just under the rear view mirror.

The whole drive saw him like this, really noticing details in things he’d had in front of him every day for most of his life.

He saw that his hands were aging. There were crumples he’d never noticed in his hat on the floor. He picked it up and put it on his head to look at it in the mirror. And he saw his reflection. He looked away and tried to keep noticing the other things. The gears again, the spider had moved up a bit, the paint splash looked kinda like a tree, the whole hat brim was crumpled.

He faced the mirror once more and this time he didn’t turn away. And then finally, as the sun went down, Carol noticed himself.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

Nine year old William took a kite out from under his bed and quietly snuck out the back door, wedging the squeaky flyscreen open with a broom and scampered across the back fence to the park while his family were glued to mindless game shows on the TV.

There was plenty of daylight but no one was around tonight, not even people walking their dogs. He looked towards one end of the park where there was an empty playground, at the other end, a picnic area. In between, a large stretch of grass where people would play football and cricket during the summer holidays

William placed the kite onto the ground and gently unravelled the each section so he could see all the parts, checking nothing was tangled. He carefully arranged the tail out under the diamond shaped kite, checked the knots along the spine and cross spars, then unravelled three long arm lengths of line from the green reel.

Once William was satisfied, he stood up and looked out towards the sea, put his finger in his mouth to moisten it and then held it into the breeze.

‘Perfect,’ he whispered.

Today the wind was blowing out to sea which he intuitively meant he had to start close to the shoreline and run back to where he arrived at the park. He picked up the kite by the middle of the frame, grabbed the green reel of line and headed towards the start of the sand dunes. The tail of the kite dragged along the ground behind him.

William reached the edge of the dunes, turned to face the sea, held the kite in his left hand high above his head, shook the tail so it fell into place and reeled off about three more arm lengths of string which curled at his feet.

His body tensed as he said out loud to no one ‘Ready….Set…Go’ William tossed the kite in the air with all his might at the same time he started to run away from the beach. The string snapped tight as the kite whipped up and down, sideways and around until it found a gust of wind that took it upwards.

‘Woo hoo’ squealed William as he let more string slip through his fingers, taking the kite higher and higher, the tail whipping behind its colourful companion.

With no warning, the wind dropped. The kite dipped rapidly and William pulled tightly on the string to give it some upward momentum. It rose quickly again, William feeling pleased with his skills. But again, the wind dropped, the breeze changed direction and the kite started to move dangerously close to the ground, jerking to the left and then the right. William ran faster, pulling harder to stop it crashing. Within centimetres of the ground a gust blew the kite up, tail racing around behind it, the sound of the wind flapping on the tail and once again it was up in the air, this time going higher than before.

William knew from experience that his kite had found ‘the sweet spot’, the place where the wind wasn’t so gusty and it could now fly there for a long time. He lay down on the grass, his arm tugging on the string every so often, watching his kite being buffered by the wind, hearing the sounds of the nylon material flapping, the gentle waves nearby, the smell of the salt, the seaweed and the soothing sound of the breeze through the coastal banksias. As William lay down on the newly dewed grass his thoughts turned to the day’s events and wondered how he was going to tell his parents that he lost his new soccer ball.

They weren’t going to be happy that he’d snuck it to school.

They weren’t going to be happy that once of his classmates took it off him, teased him by kicking it to another boy and wouldn’t let him have it.

They weren’t going to be happy that after ten minutes of playing ‘keepings off’ William, the boys got bored and booted his ball over the school fence onto the busy road.

He watched it roll down the hill; he watched two cars drive right over the top of it but not hit it; He saw it come to rest in the gutter at the bottom of the street. He wasn’t allowed to leave the school grounds or he’d get a detention. But at that moment the bell rang for the end of the break. William looked back down at his ball and was torn between his new soccer ball and getting a detention. Students were walking into classes however, William couldn’t move, just looking at his ball.

He paused for a moment to weigh up the pros and cons but was unaware that he was already walking towards the fence of the school to retrieve his ball. He put his hands on the fence and was halfway over when he heard:

‘William Charles Stockton, where are you going?’ It was the Principal, Mr. Edgerton.

‘I….I…’ he fumbled for words.

‘Over here Mr. Stockton – NOW!’ said the Principal.

As William climbed down from the fence, he took one last look back down the street to see a Jims Mowing van pull over next to his soccer ball. A man leapt out of the passenger side, picked up the ball, jumped back in and the van drove off.

William’s heart sank. Not only had he lost his soccer ball, but now he was probably going to get a detention. And his parents will ground him from going out anywhere after school for a month.

William sighed as he looked up at his kite when he saw a familiar van pulled up at the other end of the park. Two men emerged eating a hamburger and a ball which they started to kick to each other. William recognised them as the same dudes who picked his ball up earlier that day. With all the gumption he could muster and still holding his kite, he walked over to two men and nervously asked ‘nice ball, where did you get it?’

‘Why do you wanta know peanut’ said one of them.

‘Because I lost my ball today at school, it rolled down the hill into the gutter and I saw you pick it up.’

‘Well it’s not yours,’ said one.

‘If it’s not yours, then it won’t have my name on it,’ said William.

‘No name on this ball, except Adidas,’ said the larger of the two men as he rolled the ball over in his hands showing him the name Adidas.

‘My name is on the other side, it should say WS on the other side’ William said as boldly as he could.

The second man snatched the ball from his friend and spun the ball around in his hand and stopped when suddenly, staring.

William knew his name was on it, he knew it was his ball.

The two men tossed the ball at him and said ‘whatever’ and walked back to their van.

The kite kept flapping above William’s head, dipping and cutting through the air.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

So, today I bit the bullet and attended Catherine Deveny’s Gunnas writing class and it was fabulous.

A day all about a kick up my procrastinitis-bigtimus-1A, arse, inspiration and devouring plenty of fantastic food. (provided by the lovely, food ninjas at La Luna Bistro in Carlton)

On my way home I had a gazillion and twenty-nine thoughts going through my head, negative and positive, about writing and myself – Can I? Can’t I? And then, on the radio, I heard these lyrics being sung by the magnificent Kate Miller-Heidke – “I’m sick of turning it down” and a bolt of lightning hit my lead-ridden brain.

I couldn’t even hear the rest of the song because those lyrics rang so incredibly true to me, and an idea for something to write, was formed, then and there, in my car, driving along good old Punt Rd.

My entire life has seen me being told to “keep it down” or “ssshhhh” or “calm down” or asked “why do you have to be so loud?” and until quite recently these statements would slap me in the face, knock the wind right out of me and I would stop. A wee bit of background – I’m of mixed race – half Italian, half Anglo-Irish and a lot of these comments would come from the more-reserved of my clan and therefor cut me quite deeply. I would feel hurt and angry and upset, but I would stop talking and expressing myself.

I knew I needed to analyse exactly what was happening and so I sat and thought about what was really going on and a giant light-bulb moment, so bright I felt like a dumb-arse for never having seen it before occurred.

Even though other people’s reactions to my big-voiced, gregarious, outspoken, opinionated ways are their responsibility and issue, every time anyone said these things to me, what I heard was “could you please stop being you?”

A few years ago, I had the soul-stirring experience of visiting Italy, the land of my Father and his family for generations. As my partner and I drove across the border from France into Italy I could not only SEE a difference I could feel it.

We stopped at a vibrant and hectic small-town, market place and as I stood amongst all the people there, I cried.

Loud-talkers! Everywhere I looked – all I could see and hear were loud-talkers. And no matter where we went, where we sat and watched, where we sat and ate, where we sat and drank – there were passionate, demonstrative, hilarious, angry, happy, LOUD-talkers.

I found my people. I found my spiritual home. I found ME.

So, YES, actually, I AM sick of turning it down and I won’t be any more, ever again,

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

So…I have to write for five minutes without stopping, but I don’t know where to start.

I have always written in times of stress and times of angst…perhaps it’s a form of praying.  And it’s never meant for anybody else.

And right now there is so much stuff inside me and swirling around me that deciding where to start is impossible.  I think that I could write so much stuff about so many things…things that are massively important to me and that I find all-consuming…but in the end maybe it is all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff.  Everyone else here today seems so confident and experienced and know what they want to write and in what form.  They know why they are here…I’m not sure why I am.

I feel like I’d like to write …what? A novel, a blog, a short story?  I want to tell my story…but is it that interesting?  I want other women to hear me…there are some things that I want to shout from the rooftops.  But I don’t want my children to read this stuff…or if they do, I don’t want them to know it is me.  Yet, my children are the people that would learn the most…my children are the ones I most need to hear me.  But I am scared of their reactions, scared of how it would affect them, scared of how their father would use it to influence them…and like every other area of my life, my children and their well-being dominate my actions.

I could write about being married to an emotional and verbal bully.   I could write about how this bullying and manipulation is so insidious, so cunning, that you don’t even know you’re suffering.  I could write about how this marriage, this life, seemed perfect…but was so not!  I could write about how my life over the last four years has changed into something completely unrecognisable from the previous so-called perfect life.

I could write about my beautiful first-born child – my son – that blonde-haired, blue-eyed cherub who is a man now, and is ashamed of me and barely speaks to me.  I could write about how that has broken my heart, but I cannot fix it.

I could write about the pain of watching my children suffer from their father’s bullying and manipulative  words, but being powerless to stop it, and unable to protect them any more. I could write about the tears I shed every second week when they leave me to be with him.  I could write about how even though I have found the courage to leave this man, two years later he still dominates my life, and I live in constant fear.  Not fear of violence, but fear of losing my children because of his influence and indoctrination of them.  Everything I do, everything I say is something to be used against me.

I could write about how I don’t know where I fit in, who I want to be, how I have changed my identity in a way…yet I am not sure what that new identity even is.

I want to warn other women about being emotionally blackmailed, financially controlled, and verbally bullied…so much is said at the moment about domestic violence, but there’s a whole range of other behaviour that women need to save themselves from…that they need to recognise.

I could write about how totally lost and demoralised I feel without a career, without an income, unable to support myself.  I could write about how angry I am with the system for not being able to protect me financially, and with my former husband for being a liar, a cheat, and a fraud and leaving me, the mother of his five children, with debt that is not mine, and with no house to live in or money to live on.

I could write about how much I hate living two lives…my kids’ week, and my partner’s week…and never the twain do meet.  Two years of this, and I can’t see it ending.

I could write about shame and guilt and letting down your children, and feeling as though you have tricked everybody.   I could write about trying to let go of 25 years of thinking one way, and how long that is taking me.  I could write about the overwhelming desire to just live how I want to…without my actions or way of life impacting on ANYBODY.

OR…I could write about love – real, perfect, beautiful, forever, can’t-live-without love – that I never knew existed.  I could write about the joy that I didn’t think was possible.  I could write about the trust that I have never given or received.  I could write about feeling cherished, and safe, and respected and protected.   I could write about how that love and joy and trust has turned my life upside down.  I could write about how a kind, GOOD man has changed my world.  I could write about how despite all the pain, I don’t regret finally choosing respect and kindness over control and criticism.  I could write about how, above all, I don’t regret choosing love over fear.

But the five minutes is up and I don’t know where to start.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

Are you fucking kidding me? I thought it but I didn’t say it. I’m 37 and have never let out an expletive more severe than ‘shit’ in front of my parents.

Dad looks like he’ll cry. Mum looks down and my brother plays with his cutlery.
I look over at my husband. He’s known for a week.

I’ve stopped breathing.

I grew up in an Italian family, the typical southern European migrant story that starts with grandparents arriving with their kids on a boat in the mid 50’s and 60 years later we’re still holding onto the home made sauce making, gesticulating and yelling most communications and one remaining Nonna that speaks no English. Just as well I speak two dialects as well as ‘proper’ Italian better than my 28 other cousins so ‘Nons’ and I can hang.

Chubby tears roll out of the corners of his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter dad.. I don’t care.. Dad, please..”  I just want him to stop being upset and I want him to stop talking.  I’m tearing at him tearing.

Mums knuckles are white as she strangles her luncheon serviette.

“No.. please, daughter.. let me finish…” – throat clear, deep breath, long exhale.

“We tried for a few years to have children after we got married. When we realised we just couldn’t, we applied to adopt and we got you. You were 6 weeks old and you made us the happiest people ever by coming to live with us.”

My dad puts his arm around mum and I see two frightened people terrified by their secret given breath.

“Who else knows about this?”

“Everyone. Everyone has always known… you can’t just turn up with a 6 week old baby…and..”

“Even cousins?”

“Yes darling – they’ve always known too… we all just never wanted you feel like an outsider.. you are part of us… no one has ever loved you less… in fact we..”

I loose the ability to absorb sentences but take in ‘she was 15’,  ‘maybe Maltese’.

Everyone has always known…

I wait for the hidden camera crew to jump out or the anaesthetist to bring me back.
No one’s coming.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

Once upon a time a young boy moved from the city to the country to live with his grandparents.  He had never been to the country before, and had no idea what to expect.  The hustle and bustle of the city streets were left behind, and was replaced by the tall gum trees and the orchards of fruit farms surrounding his new town.  The culture shock was palpable.  He knew nobody, and he knew nothing of country life.  He left behind his friends and cousins, and he was unhappy.

This poor child became a recluse.  He began to stay in his room rather than join his grandparents in front of the television, reading his grandmother’s and father’s old books instead. He refused to go to school, and he didn’t want to make new friends.  Not that he could anyway, the kids in the country thought him weird and gave him a hard time.  Then one day he woke up with a revelation.  He thought, if I can’t beat them, I’ll join them.

He rummaged through this father’s old box of clothes that he himself wore as a young boy and dressed in the frilliest shirt he could find, and attached braces to his breeches.  He was going to be a country boy, even for just one day.  In no way did he think this attire was abnormal.  As stated before, he knew nothing of country living.

He gathered his courage, swallowed his pride and followed his grandfather out to the farm.  “I’m going to be a farmer, just like you, Grandpa!”, he proudly declared.  He thought he looked like a real farmer’s boy, but his grandfather took one look and burst into giggles.  Crestfallen, the little boy looked down, and was almost defeated.  Little did he know his grandfather had laughed at the boy’s father thirty years earlier.  Dad just liked frilly shirts.

“Well, come on then.  Let’s tend to the chickens,” said Grandpa.  The little boy dutifully followed him, not knowing what was in store.

Out in the far corner of the field, the chicken pen was tucked into the corner.  Because of that, the little boy could not see what would await him until he reached the pen. He was too busy looking at his feet, anyway, fascinated by the way his heavy boots crunched the frosty grass in the early morning dew.  He heard the creak of the gate as his grandfather entered the chicken coup, and then he saw them.  Twenty, maybe even thirty, hungry hens gathered around his grandfather’s bucket.  Wow, they were bigger than he expected!  Wide eyed, he watched in horror as the hens clucked and clambered for their feed.

He did not realise just how scared he would be of these little creatures.  Well, to you and I they are little, but to the boy, they were monstrous.  Covered in fur, with spindly orange legs all scaley, with what he imagined were sharp claws scratching the dirt.  Their bright red combs flopped about underneath their imposing beaks as well as on the top of their heads, placed inbetween their beady little eyes.  He’s never thought he’d encounter anything quite as bizarre and prehistoric.  And because of that, his courage died in the arse and turned into blind terror.  One hen sensed this, and almost seemingly decided to take the piss out of his frilly collar.  That’s what the little boy perceived, anyway.  The hen just wanted the corn on the cob in his hand.  The little boy retreated, burrowing his frightened faced into the wall of the shed, while the hungry hen clucked and garbled until finally the little boy let out a blood curdling scream.

Thinking the boy was hurt or in serious trouble, the grandfather quickly fled the pen to find his young grandson, in breeches, braces and frilly shirt, clinging to the post of the shed while the hen clucked for her food.  His giggle from earlier returned, more raucously than before, and he bent over with laughter.

“She’s just hungry, that’s all!”  He managed to say through his rolls of laughter.  “Give her the corn!”

The boy threw the corn at the hen’s feet, and she hungrily began pecking.  Soon she was joined by other hungry hens.  Who can’t resist a good cob of corn!

“I thought she was attacking me,” the boy slobbered through thick tears.

“Don’t be silly!  They’re harmless! Look.”  Grandpa reached down to the eager little hen, and rubbed her back between her wings.  She instantly retreated, crouching down with wings oustretched

Fascinated, the boy stared.  “What is she doing?” he asked incredulously.

“That’s what I call the panic squat.  They do this if you pat them or touch them.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine.  She’s just a bit scared.  Like you.”  He then picked her up and placed her back in the coup.

The young boy realised he had a lot to learn if he was going to be a country kid.  He also realised he was not the only one scared by the unknown.  These chickens could teaching him a thing or two, he decided, while he threw more corn cobs into the coup.

I have recently returned to Melbourne after spending nearly five years living in a small country community.  It took me a good 12 months or so to get over the culture shock of transitioning from city slicker to country bumkin, and it wasn’t until that stage that I thought, go with it, enjoy country life and embrace it.  I was surprised at how much this made a difference to my time there.  Initially I was resentful of my life being up ended, but when I decided to change my outlook, things got much better and less overwhelming.  The boy’s story is a simplified version of my own.

Katrina’s on twitter  @kat_71