On my moving house ‘To Do’ list is an item that says ‘Remove bee bubble wrap’.

That’s because here, in this house I have rented for six-and-a-half years, the bees come to visit every November. They check the house out, buzz around a lot and live in the walls for a while. The more intrepid explorers come inside through the old-fashioned vents in the ceiling. I don’t mind a few bees, but one day there were so many flying around my courtyard the air was thick with them – like a noisy, fuzzy fog – and I was too scared to go out the back door. I called the Bee Man that time, but by the time he turned up there wasn’t one to be found. Pesky things! The bee man said they were most likely scout bees, who wouldn’t ever set up a permanent home here. They just like to visit. I realised I could stuff bubble wrap in the old vents to stop the bees getting in, and I learned to live with their appearance quite happily.

The annual bee visit is one of the quirks of this house. So is the racket of the trains whizzing past, the cold seeping up through the floorboards from the basement, the regular cacophony from the neighbours’ cats (Oh, WHY do they congregate under my bedroom window for their love-fests?) and the fact that the shower is in a cupboard.

A fair bit has happened over six years. My children have grown into young adults. The last years of their childhood were here, playing chasey around the house and having waterbomb fights in the courtyard. From this house, I quit my job, went back to school to study writing and headed in a new career direction. I wrote a whole fiction manuscript in this study, a couple of kids’ books, 77 consecutive blog pieces for a parenting website, and many, many assignments. That adds up to a lot of words, a lot of thoughts, a lot of anguish and a little bit of pride.

Here, in this old-fashioned kitchen with hideous maroon benchtops, I discovered I love to cook, especially on a wintry day with the kitchen warm and cosy. In this courtyard of concrete, untidy trees and possum poo I have nurtured my small army of pot plants and marvelled over the baby fern I grew from a spore.

I’ve made new friends here and been reunited with old ones. I fell in and out of lust a few times, had my ego dented, fell in love and had my heart broken. The heartbreaker sometimes used to do circuits around this house in a helicopter. He once left roses on the back steps on Valentine’s Day attached to a helium balloon saying ‘Kiss Me!’ I cried so long the night we broke up, I could hardly see through my puffy eyes the next day. I looked like a jilted toad fish.

Yep, a fair bit has happened in this house, and leaving it will be like saying goodbye to an old friend. Tomorrow, I get the keys to the new place. When I first saw that house, and I walked across its creaky floors to admire the leadlight windows and high ceilings, I was really drawn its old-fashioned elegance. I had a strong feeling that the next chapter in my life should be written there. It is full of charm. It will have its quirks too, I have no doubt, which we will learn about with the passing of the days. While I am leaving one friend, I’m about to be introduced to another. I can’t wait to start getting acquainted. But I’m hoping I won’t need bee bubble wrap any more.