Our little home

I thought you might like to see where we live. 

It's a three bedroom weatherboard cottage with a garden in a tiny street with only six houses. The street ends with the local bowls club's carpark so there is a lot of room for the pixies and their friends to play. Nine young children live in the street so it's common for them to pop in and out of each other's houses all the time. You never know how many children will be over for afternoon tea or accompanying you to the park or the museum.

Mind you, of the nine children, there are two teenage girls, four primary school boys and two male toddlers, leaving India as the only little girl. She does very well playing with the older boys, bless her. She always delights in Joshua having any girl classmates over for playdates!

The children all play really well together with only the occasional bout of "I'm telling on you!" being blurted out. They play outside a lot and have vivid imaginations which they put to good use. When Mr PB is home on the weekend, he is like the Pied Piper of the neighbourhood, gathering children wherever he goes to have some adventure, create a collage or bake some gingerbread biscuits. In summer, we throw open the French doors and enjoy having dinner outside.

Another common occurrence is for the parents to knock on each other's doors looking for their children (even though the golden rule is that you have to tell you parents if you're going to someone's house, children being children often forget to do it). We also end up returning lost belongings a lot - Superman masks, fairy wands, scooters, helmets and dinosaurs being the common culprits.

I love our neighbourhood. Our neighbours are the real deal, just like I remember from my childhood. Everyone keeps an eye out for each other's children and is happy to lend you a ladder to collect the ball off the roof or supervise the children riding their scooters in the carpark. The children lend each other books and DVDs and watch Playschool together. The parents meet in the street to have a natter, often with a baby at our hips or a toddler clinging onto our legs. There's a lot of love being shared around.

We are also really well located to the supermarket, shops, parks and the beach. We are five minutes' walk from our hairdresser, dry cleaner, bakery, post office, newsagent, optometrist, children's clothes shops, you name it. That makes a huge difference when looking after the pixies. Convenience rules when you have littlies! We are renting at the moment while we decide what to do with our place in Sydney. However, I think we'll stay. So for the moment at least, we are revelling in life in our little cottage.

Jane