Goodbye little baby house in Observatory. It’s time for us to move on now.

This weekend we’re moving out of our little house in Observatory. It’s a very beautiful semi-detached house, so our neighbors have the ‘other half’ which is exactly the same size and layout. I heard that our current house was built in 1923 and with the railways, all the houses were split in 2 to accommodate the rail workers or something. So we really loved the old Victorian charm of 2 fireplaces, wooden floors and high ceilings. We really loved living here for so many reasons and made the two bedroom setup work for as long as possible!

Right now, we need a bigger garden. A storage shed. An office. A guest room. Parking. Automated gates. Heck even a driveway would be nice. I wish that I’d put up pictures of all our houses since I started Raising Men. There are so many memories in this home. Through so many good times, so many bad times. We moved to Cape Town when Benjamin was just 2 years old. Noah was 3. Graeme and I were both working at agencies, and everything was rushed and frantic.

I think we would have stayed on here if we had a spare room and a dining room. The main reason we’re moving is so that we can be in the school catchment district in Claremont. So that we can have a garden to play in. Have a big dining room for boardgames, puzzles, dinners and homework. My favourite part? It’s a 4 bedroom home so we’re using the central room as an office. It’s a big hexagon shaped room with enough space for 4 desks… And it has a skylight. And so many shelves. I can’t wait to be there. To fix everything up all over again and turn it in to a bunny house.

I’m always a bit weirded out by putting up pictures of our home. It’s not perfect. But you know… We spent so many years here, dancing around with the boys, building my agency, sitting here in the dark at 2am, changing nappies, bathing the boys, cooking dinners, playing games and roasting marshmallows at the fireplace. This house was mostly filled with love and light. We started our little life over here, we moved to Cape Town – then we started over at least five more times until we started getting things right. Goodbye number 20. You were so good to us x