I can finally let folks in on a badly kept secret. This week we signed a contract for the sale of our holiday house or as we like to mockingly call it “our lifestyle property” at Bagshot. Four years ago, when in the midst of a plant and wildlife fever, I convinced Kim that I wanted a bigger garden or a second place to grow things. We both love Preston, so I started looking for a bush block. I had ideas of buying a cheap block and building a cabin on weekends. You seem to read plenty of stories in Owner Builder or Earth Garden about other couples that do that. But if dig deep into the kind of person I am, I really don’t have the long term ambition or doggedness and I suspect that many of those who do, are strongly motivated by their more limited financial position (i.e necessity). Kim’s interests are far more book, food and wine based, so spending a weekend making mudbricks was always going to be a motivational stretch. So, when we found the place at Bagshot, it was all setup and ready to go – water tanks, pumps, generators, solar panels. All stuff that would cost a lot of money to install and time to get working. We extended our loan and signed up, moved our old furniture and cutlery in. Kim made some curtains and we fought over whether we should have a TV there. I didn’t want it to be the same as home (I lost). I had some fantastic weekends wandering around discovering new plants, gettting little white dogs utterly exhausted. I chainsawed trees, built fences, relocated solar panels and learnt firsthand about the innards of a blocked and smelly septic tank. I replanted the yard and waited a couple of years till wonderful honeyeaters not found in Melbourne discovered it. My friend Michael did a environmental assessment of it for his BSc. I still remember the day I discovered the only 3 Yellow Gums on the whole 120 acres, hidden in a gully that proves difficult to find even now. I’ve really enjoyed it, but the maintenance has got a bit much. I’m always finding new things that shit me. The front doors don’t close properly and let cold air in, despite much tweaking. There’s no winter sun at all. We’re not near enough to other ammenities. The driveway is slowly being engulfed by vigorous Blue Mallee plants. The house is very hot in summer. We’d really like to demolish it and put a wonderful new $100k kit home there, but it’s not to be. We settle on 11/11/05. I hope the new owners like the wildlife and the quietness. I hope they aren’t too miffed that you can’t run a hair dryer or an evaporative cooler on 4 small solar panels. I hope they realise living there full time will be a big change from living in the city. I hope they have a ball, and really make a go of it.