On Koala's and Leaving the house

It’s bitterly cold today but spring is so close I can almost touch it – see my flowers are flowering!

We have a wood fireplace and an L shaped house, the fire is in one end of the L and the living areas are in the other, so I am sitting in the sunny window of the lounge room binge drinking black coffee and willing the warmth from the fire to come around the corner. It’s not really working.

A facebook friend who lives near me had a koala come up to her house the other day, I knew they were in the area but I have never been lucky enough to see a wild one. You see my American friends, they are not as common in many parts of Australia as people think, they only like eating a select variety of eucalypt trees and so they don’t tend to be in peoples’ backyards, nor do they occur in such mass as to cling on to the legs of helicopters as they fly away That's a Simpsons reference in case you think I'm crazy(er). 

Living on 100acres of solid Aussie bush land does however increase my odds of sighting one, at least if I should ever actually leave my house and go for a walk. They say that getting back to nature is a wonderful treatment for depression, the trouble is that even with nature on the doorstep I have a hard time finding the will to actually submerge myself in it, I mean I have managed to see Echidnas, Wombats, Wallabies and of course Roo’s without even leaving my bedroom, but unfortunately I think I might have to actually hunt down a Koala.

Whenever I do force myself outdoors I enjoy myself, I love breathing in the scent of the gum trees, I love gardening in my huge vegetable patch and watching my four cheeky cats frolicking in and out of my fairy garden. So it frustrates me that I do have to “force” myself, you would think with so many things I love I would just want to. 

I guess depression is a funny thing, at some point you lose the will to want to help yourself the sheer effort involved doesn’t feel worth the potential happiness – perhaps this is because we perceive happiness differently through depressed eyes, maybe it becomes more of an intellectual definition rather than an emotional feeling and therefor is harder to relate to?

Anyway, I know that I spend an hour a day on the treadmill and roughly an hour a week outside, including walking from house to car and hanging out washing. That’s a pretty poor ratio, I will endeavor to at least triple my outdoors time (baby steps) now that Spring is Spring-ing.

So on a warmer less windy day this week I pledge that I will go for a bush walk and try and spot Koalas for at least one hour, whilst also being careful not to step on any number of venomous snakes that will now be emerging from their winter slumber. And I will photograph my walk to prove I did it! 

Do you have trouble leaving the house even on nice days?