A Bit of History
In June 2007 I joined a little known social media system called Twitter. For my twitter name I called myself Pacific Blue, based on a social name I’d been using since the early 2000’s.
Seven years before my entry into Tweets, I had married and left my home country of New Zealand to move to my husband’s home area, smack in the middle of England. Those years were busy with family – I gave birth to our daughter; career and taking on the busy and popular hobby of paper-crafting and scrapbooking; then later, the beginning of my writing practise. But my years in the UK made me a little homesick for the ocean.
My childhood and first decades as an adult had been spent close to the ocean – as much of New Zealand is. I had grown up in a small agricultural and fishing town at the top of the South Island of New Zealand and my childhood was full of opportunities to simply bike down or walk around the shores of the town. A later move to work in Wellington also allowed me harbourside views of the ocean. Despite not being a great swimmer, I was born and raised with the Pacific Coast in my blood.
Ten years ago now my small family moved back from the UK and down-under to Sydney. By then I knew that my twitter handle was also the name for an airline company which was later bought up by Virgin and became Virgin Australia (NZ). The name – Pacific Blue, is freely found on the internet and particularly is used by a lot of Australian businesses, from investment companies to boutique hotels. It was also the name of an American crime fighting series until 2000, apparently.
When my husband and I went on a holiday up to the very top of the New South Wales coast 18 months ago, and walked out onto a rugged wave-swept Tweed Coast beach, tears rolled down my cheeks and I tasted the salt of the pure Pacific blue. I was home. Little did we know but a pandemic was about to change the world only a month later, but the taster of living close to the beach was enough to start planning for our final move and sea change.
There is nothing wrong with our Sydney home, it was perfect for bringing up our daughter and medley of pets, of education and other hobbies and sports weekends. But it wasn’t very close to the sand, the waves, and fresh air that only the Pacific can bring for me. So soon, I will move home.