Ten Years in the Land of the Long Blue Sky
by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft
Last week, on the 29th of September, we marked ten years since we landed in Perth.
I have been thinking about how to write this, because it is not a simple story. It is not a story of leaving something behind, or of arriving somewhere new. It is a story about what happens when you keep saying yes — to life, to change, to the terrifying and wonderful possibility that the next chapter might be the best one yet.
So let me start where it really begins. With London.
I loved London. I want to say that first and say it clearly, because this is not a story about running away from something. London gave me my university education, my BA, my English — the language I now write in. It gave me jobs that shaped me, friendships that have lasted decades, and an education in life that no classroom could have provided.
One of my first jobs there was in a fashion boutique on the Kings Road in Chelsea. Seventy percent staff discount. I was in my twenties, newly arrived, and I still smile when I think of it — the particular joy of a young woman in London with access to beautiful clothes and absolutely no concept of what would actually fit in her budget otherwise.
London gave me Hampton Court and my deep love of history — Henry and all his magnificent mischief. It gave me remarkable museums and libraries and parks, and the particular magic of a city that holds thousands of years in its stones and still manages to feel alive. I went to Regent's Park and the Chelsea Physic Garden and Walpole Park in Ealing, where the magnolias bloomed every spring and I felt, standing among them, entirely at home.
But cities change, and we change inside them. By 2015, the crowds had begun to weigh on us in a way they hadn't before. David had been doing shift work in casinos for many years — work that had been exciting and well-suited to a younger man, and that had quietly become something else. We looked at each other and said: it's time.
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We had spoken about Perth for years, since our wedding in Poland. David's family travelled from Australia to celebrate with us. Perth was always the answer when someone asked where we imagined ourselves going. Western Australia — vast, sun-soaked, space-filled, a world away from the grey and the noise and the beautiful, exhausting density of London.
I put my application in for the spousal visa. And then, as these things go, the world decided to be dramatic about it. The Brexit referendum began stirring the pot. By June 2016, when we knew we were flying to Perth one way, the vote had happened — and we stood there, genuinely gobsmacked. It was not the result I had hoped for. But I will say this: it validated our decision completely. I loved London and I wanted to keep it that way, as a memory held intact. I didn't want to watch it change into something I didn't recognise. Leaving when I did meant I got to keep all of it.
My last weekend in London, I spent with my dear friend Hania — my high school friend, who had found her own life in England at the time. We went to Hampton Court. One of my favourite places in the world, and the perfect place to say goodbye to a city I had loved so well. We had such a wonderful time that weekend that I still think of it often. Every Christmas, I hang a small angel on the tree — a decoration I brought back from that visit — and there she is. Hania. Hampton Court. The last golden weekend.
And then I thought about distances. London to Gdańsk is a two-hour flight. Perth to London — or Gdańsk — is more like thirty hours, door to door. That was the thing I had to sit with. Not leaving. The distance.
I sat with it. And then I got on the plane.
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We arrived in Perth on the 29th of September 2016.
I remember the sky. The sheer quantity of it. After years of London — beautiful, layered, pressed-in London — the sky here felt almost shocking. And then the space. The long roads with nothing pressing in from the sides. The air. The light, which is a different quality of light entirely, warm and direct and generous in a way that English light, for all its beauty, simply isn't.
And I thought: oh. So this is what we were saying yes to.
In ten years, this is what we have built here.
We found our house — a lovely home with a beautiful garden, with space to grow things and room to breathe. We adopted Leia, our Princess, who danced with us to Elvis and Nina Simone and was the most extraordinary companion for nine years. Then Gizmo, who arrived shaking and became the gentlest soul. Then Anya, who came from the other side of the world and decided we were her people. And last week — in a week already full of anniversaries — little Sooty arrived, mostly white with just enough black to earn her name, and curled up on the sofa as if she'd always been here.
The garden gives us mandarins and passionfruit. The markets give us local produce, seasonal and fresh, and Anya takes the whole enterprise very seriously. We have walked beaches for an hour and a half and met perhaps three people. We have watched kangaroos in the park on a Sunday morning and on a Tuesday afternoon. We have stood in the middle of wildflower season and understood, for the first time, what the word abundance actually means. And we have seen stretches of days — many days — when there is not a single cloud on the horizon. Just that blue. Just that extraordinary, unbroken, Western Australian blue.
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Since I was a little girl, I have carried three dreams. The first was to see the world — especially Australia. I worked on cruise ships and saw the world, and now I live in Australia. The second was to adopt a child. The third was to write books. I am doing that now too, with remarkable writing friends here who have shaped my work in ways I am still discovering. Three dreams, held since childhood, all three lived. I am forever grateful for that — I know I am blessed beyond words, and I walk in God's favour. I don't take that lightly for a single day. I don't take that lightly for a single day.
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Here I also established Write a Letter, Send a Smile — our group of volunteers who meet monthly to write to elderly people in aged care and to hospital patients, and whose kindness never stops moving me. Every year at Christmas, Anya and I set up a little shop for Vinnies — biscotti, shortbread, fruit cakes, gingerbread, marmalade, jam, all made in our kitchen and packed beautifully — and every year it fills me with the particular joy of something that started as an idea and became a tradition.
Our family in Australia and in Poland stays close. Friends and family have come to visit over the years, and next month my mum arrives — which will be wonderful for all of us, and perhaps most of all for Anya, who still talks about our trip to Poland in January with great fondness, even though the reason for our visit was a sad one.
And I should mention: from London, Bali felt like another world, but from Perth, it is a short flight away. We have been there about twenty times in ten years.
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Ten years. The same sky, different eyes. I am so glad we came. Not because London wasn't wonderful — it was. But because Perth has given us a life we couldn't have imagined from the other side of it. The biggest blessings of my life have happened here. And I have a feeling the story is nowhere near finished.
A Moment of TAG
Ten years in one place — or ten years anywhere — is worth pausing over. Here is how the TAG Method meets an anniversary:
Thanksgiving — Take Action
Write down three things that exist in your life today that didn't exist ten years ago. What could it be? A person, a place, a habit, a friendship? Or a new version of yourself? Give them their names and put them on paper. That is Thanksgiving: the act of making the good things real by naming them.
Appreciation — Build Awareness
Think of one place — a city, a house, a chapter of life — that shaped you and that you have since left. Notice what it gave you that you carried forward. Appreciation is the recognition that everything we loved has made us who we are now.
Gratitude — Feel It
Let yourself feel grateful for the decision you once made that changed everything. The yes you said. The plane you got on. The door you walked through not knowing what was on the other side. It took courage, and it led here. That is worth feeling.
With love and gratitude,
Agnieszka
If you are on Substack, come and find me there next Sunday. The word we will be sitting with is Courage — and I think, after this particular blog, you will understand why it feels like the right word for this moment.
In two weeks, come back and find me here. I'll be writing about the power of being seen — what it means to step out of the shadows and let your story be known. I think it might surprise you how much you already know about this.
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To read more of my posts, go back to BLOG | Agnieszka W.
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