Lindy's Place!

As we were in Townsville recently, Dave asked after our mutual friend Lindy.  It just seems easier to place the letter-to-Dave here because I can include photos! 

And you may find it inspirational too.

Yes, Dave, we indeed caught up with Lindy and the good news is she's doing great. And, like the rest of us, Lindy's got her mind on the very near future when she can finally say "Sod the lot of you. This is now about ME!!" and, like so many of our good friends, wants to do it "off the grid", "planet-friendly", and with practically no carbon footprint.

She, however, unlike the rest of us, doesn't need to think about where to go to retire! Hubby bought acreage in the bush outside Townsville many decades ago, back when he was a single guy, and back when this "scrub-land" was so cheap-as-chips we're now all cursing ourselves because we didn't buy then too.

However, while still a single guy, and an early "off-the-gridder", he built himself a very sweet little weekender that he suggested they move into when they both retire ... 

Totally, a hubby-idea-of-home!

Yes, it's very sweet and cute and all ... but as a place to live full-time?  Bahahahahahhahhha! I mean, look at the KITCHEN!

And the bathing facilities consist of a kids wading pool under a tree, however I didn't take a photo of it so can't show it to you.  And you can thank me for not taking a photo of the loo as well!

 Yes, I know Lindy is all Earth-Mother and Back-to-Nature, but even she draws the line somewhere.

Oh, and here's us when we went out to find the place:

STUCK!!!

It hadn't rained for ages and we had four-wheel drive yet we still got bogged and had to dig our way out.

So you can understand Lindy's problem!  Yes, it's a lovely place for the odd weekend of ear-buzzing silence, but for everyday, day-in-day-out?  Only a husband would suggest it! PLUS Lindy wants her post-retirement life to be all about art and painting and "doing her own thing", yet there's no place here where she can store art supplies or anything else needful.  And what about her books?  And her paintings? Hubby, however, has always dreamed of the time he can live there full-time and couldn't even see what her problem was!

Husbands, la! Can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em!

But Lindy is Lindy, and like all teachers everyplace - remember Keith with his Tower of Power - when he got a A$250,000.00 project done for NOTHING!!! - she knows that you can always make something out of nothing, so put her mind to work solving this dilemma.

Then, in a stroke of luck, she heard of a developer who had bought up a block in South Townsville with the plan to demolish all the old houses to make way for something "big and elegant" so she immediately raced over to check them out and instantly fell in love with a nearly-130-year-old miners cottage made out of hardwood timber, so she tracked down the developer and asked him if she could have it!

No problem whatsoever! It was hers on the proviso she remove it ASAP!!

So early one morning, way before dawn, the house was lifted and hauled up onto a truck and driven all those dire and endless miles out of the city and into the bush, with her following behind in her car and, yes, she said it was the most terrifying ride of her life with her heart in her mouth, her fingers crossed so hard she had trouble untangling them later, and washes of nausea every time the house shook or rocked or tilted or moved in any way!

I absolutely could NOT have done it.  Definitely, I'd have stayed home in bed, zonked out on valium, with my heart in my mouth and a pillow over my head!  Lindy, like Gunga Din, is definitely a better man than I am!

She'd already chosen the spot so they put it down there ...

... and a nicer spot you could not imagine.  Here's the view from the back door where she plans to build a deck:

And she never saw inside the house until it was hers, but she said the moment she walked through that front door she was instantly "Ahhhh!" ...

 I mean, look! Even those hardwood floors alone!

Can you believe some dick just wanted to demolish the place!

 ... because the workmanship was just so good and the structure so strong, so she was joyous that she'd decided to just "trust her gut" and go with it!


It still needs a LOT of work however and ...

... apart from putting in gardens and a drive-way and building the back deck, she's planning to enclose downstairs as a library for her countless number of beloved can't-ever-get-rid-of-them books.

Except ... you see that hammock down there?  Lindy says that thing is THE WORST IDEA EVER because it's just so nice and, once you've sunk yourself into it, it's so hard to get away from and there's so much still to do which she isn't doing ... so I tried it out and, yes indeed, that hammock is definitely THE DEVIL INCARNATE because the silence is so complete and the breeze is so beautiful and view so sublime ...

 
... I wanted everyone to just go off and leave me there for the rest of my life!

And one day very soon, all this will be Lindy's life!

So that's what Lindy is currently up to, Dave!  And do you too envy her?

And the best part is ...

... hubby still has his sweet little "man-cave" deeper in the scrub-land that he can go off and live in anytime he chooses to LIVE LIKE A MAN!