This is the journey of how a City-bred Podium Princess met a “Diamond in the Rough” Country-boy; how he dazzled me with visions of living semi-retired in rural splendour, complete with white picket fence, farm animals and promises of a pony.
“He” entered my life in January 2009, by May we were a “Couple”, June was our first trip to Tenterfield in NSW. Home loan approved July 1st. Settlement Day October 19th. December 4th I retired after 20 years at NAB. December 5th moved to Mt Welcome Homestead Bolivia NSW 2372. The only Bolivia I knew of was a tiny country somewhere in South America.
Life as I knew it had come to an end.
I had bought a 5 Bedroom Farmhouse set on, what I thought of at the time: a sprawling 5 acres. After being raised in suburban Brisbane and also spending my early 20’s on a similar sized block this seemed like a nice manageable amount of land. I believed the dream had finally become real.
It was the beginning of the darkest, most psychologically tortuous period of my life.
It all started off innocuously enough. Packed up my little Mazda 2 with as much as possible, met and loaded up one of the new rescue dogs we’d just adopted. His name was Conan and during the 4 hour trip southward we got to know each other. “He” drove down with our other new dog named Cilla. The rest of our stuff, ie enough furniture to fill a 5 Bedroom house was being transported down later in a removalist truck.
Was so relieved when we finally arrived, excited and ready to start this new adventure living a life of relaxed semi-retirement. Unpacked the car and went to get the dogs some bowls of water, turned on the kitchen tap and then nothing came out.
Had a bit of a Green Acres – Lisa Douglas moment. (For those that don’t know – it was a sitcom that ran from 1965 to 1971 about a New York Socialite from Upper Manhattan and her husband, how they moved to the countryside and all the chaos that ensued.)
I called out “Honey, ummm there’s no water coming out of the taps.” whilst slightly freaking out that we were all going to perish and die of dehydration. (Yes I know it was a bit of a dramatic response but you have to remember, for city folk water just magically appears when one turns on the tap). Had also just spent 4 hours driving with a dog I didn’t know off to a place I’d never previously heard of before.
“He” whom I shall now refer to as Old Mate crawled under the house to investigate. About 10 mins later he calls out “Can you go in and fetch me a steak knife!!!”
Yeh, if you know me personally you could just imagine the expression of utter confusion that flashed across my face. So I was like – ok? Rummaged around inside, came back and presented him with said object. Approx 5 mins later he calls out “Try it now!!!”
Miraculously, precious water now gushed out happily from the tap. At the time it seemed like he’d just performed magic but the dogs and I were suitable impressed and very appreciative. Apparently a steak knife can be used to cut the appropriate piece of poly-pipe and use an existing connector piece to join said piece to the correct pipe and ta dah! Crisis averted.
The following months were a rapid learning curve for me as we settled into countrylife and tried to assimilate into the local community. Old Mate had a job at one of the local Nursing Homes and I was going to be a Housewife/ Lady of Luxury.
After the fast-paced whirlwind and bright lights of the City, adjustment to the much slower pace of countrylife took a bit of getting used to. Back then Tenterfield (the closest town) moved at a pace reminiscent of Brisbane in the 70’s. Being the New Boys in Town, the locals apparently knew who we were. When we first arrived to collect the keys to the Farmhouse from the Real Estate we didn’t even have to say who we were and what we wanted. After the cold anonymity of citylife this was an unexpected and rather pleasant surprise.
Another pleasant surprise was to learn that we weren’t the only gay couple in the district. A gay couple owned the local Pizza shop and another couple used to run the Bald Rock Cafe. Also we discovered that everything apart from Coles just shut down at 12pm on a Saturday. That took a bit of getting used to after the convenience of the city. As we lived 30kms south of town it meant planning shopping trips as one couldn’t just duck down to the corner store.
The next challenge came when Old Mate decided he didn’t like working at the Nursing Home – it had been barely 3 weeks in to my new life and we suddenly had to come up with a new viable source of income.
And that boys and girls is how I became the proud new Owner of the Bluebelle Cafe in Deepwater, a little town 20 kms south of the Farm along the New England Highway. Because it was for commercial purposes I was able to use my Super Annuation funds to purchase the property.
Highland Dreamer 