Should I stay or should I go?

We're going. We're packing up and leaving Christchurch and heading home to the north island. Incredible. If someone had told me a week ago, on my daughter's second day at uni for the year, that our life was going to change so dramatically as to leave our home of 11 years because of a big earthquake and annoying aftershocks, I wouldn't have believed them. I still can't believe it, yet it is all falling into place. As sometimes happens when the decision is the right thing to do (I so hope it is).

The dog's confused, there are boxes everywhere, and the property manager is coming over today to take photos of our house so he can more easily let it, with my beloved garden, which my daughter and I have lovingly built up and developed to be just the way I want it over the last 11 years.

I've got to admit, our townhouse wasn't that crash hot when we first bought it but it has at least tripled in value now, even in this so-called recession. It had dingy carpet, no heating, thin curtains, apricot coloured walls. But now it is beautiful - light, creamy coloured walls, except for Felicity's room which has a deep blue painted wash over it, which I lovingly did when she was away one holiday to surprise her, she has loved her room ever since. The garden has my own mosiac paving, a chamomile lawn, a scented sitting area (wintersweet tree, jasmine, a fragrant rose, and of course the chamomile lawn smells divine) and very productive planter boxes which I have harvested so many delicious veges from this summer past. It has a pergola in front of the bifold doors which open to the courtyard which I hang my hammock from - there are also bifold doors which open out to the balcony upstairs - a delicious treat on a sunny weekend morning to have breakfast in bed with the bifolds opening the room up to the garden and birds a tweeting.

Life has been good in our "Little White Townhouse with the Chamomile Lawn" (reference: Milly Molly Mandy and her "Nice White Cottage With The Thatched Roof where Milly Molly Mandy lived"). This has been my 16 year old's home since she was 5. Together we read Milly Molly Mandy many times, as well as the complete Little House (on the Prairie) series, Narnia, Harry Potter, and then she moved on to her own chapter books: nearly everything written by Beverley Cleary, Jacqueline Wilson and beyond. It has been a "bookish" house.

Our little white townhouse is lovely and cosy now, all of the windows are double glazed and there is a heat pump for those chilly winter days. This house survived the earthquake with not even a crack in the walls. It's so different from when I bought it, now it's tailor-made for us. Sigh. So sad to leave. But the time has come.

Onwards and upwards. We are moving to Wellington, New Zealand's capital. I am giving away a lot of my things and putting this life behind us. My daughter will be starting at a new school as soon as we can arrange it rather than waiting around for the infrastructure in this ruined city to be rebuilt, our main reason for leaving. I loved this house, this city of Christchurch, New Zealand, this lifestyle so much, I thought I would live here forever. But I haven't and won't be selling the house for a while, so "dun dun dunnnn"...