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October 2009 
About To Make A Move
Posted on Mar 27th, 2009
by 
Fearless
Fearless
IT JUST OCCURRED TO ME that I haven't shown you a photo of where I'm living at the moment in Esperance.
I really love it here. A lovely couple, Margaret and Bob, have given me the hospitality of their property for the past four months or so and now that I've decided to stay here in Esperance and put down some roots, I thought it was about time I moved on. I put an advertisement in the local paper the other day as a "Housesitter" and got a call straight away about a place about three kms from my favourite beach! Wonderful!
So I shall be taking up residence on a new property next Friday. The people will be away for a month, so for the next four weeks (while David is visiting), we will have a house and a pregnant cow; two horses (one who is over 30 years old!); two dogs (one deaf and nearly blind); three ducks; two chooks and a pond full of goldfish to look after.
They are going away again in Aug/Sept, and have asked me to look after their place again then too, which is good. Nothing like having your life fall into place.
This new couple are old hippies and were among the first hippies to settle at Denmark (the community other people have been recommending to me). I travelled there a couple of weekends ago (about a 500 km drive away) and while it IS a lovely looking community, the town doesn't embrace the ocean, the way Esperance does and I realised that I really had become emotionally attached to Esperance. So it was no contest - good community or not, Esperance is the place I want to be.
I've started looking into the Transition Towns movement, and shall write more about this before too long. As unrealistic (or conceited) as it may be, I've decided to work towards making Esperance the kind of town I would like to live in.
Coincidentally, there have been a number of people who have been coming in to the store where I work, saying they are involved in the environmental movement in one way or another.
Soooooooo .... a bit of a catch up on what's been happening with me lately.
Spoke to my father yesterday and he expressed a little concern about his failing memory, saying that he's considering having a tag made for himself with his name and address on it, because he's worried that he really will forget where he lives one day! We joked about this and when he mentioned something about me coming back to the eastern states to look after him in his dotage, I was VERY tempted to say, "Well, that would be okay ... as long as you don't hang around for too long!"
I'm working at two shops now - a dress shop and a giftware shop (both owned by the same people). Whenever they go away on holidays or a buying trip, they've asked me to mind their house too and that's been a marvellous change. It's a great little place, on a hill, overlooking the town and beach. They have two VERY peppy little poodles - Coco and Paris - and they are great fun to have around (although Marlo continues to be lowkey around them).
Being around so many mirrors and fashion-conscious people really made me focus on my body and my wardrobe! I've been madly trying on clothes and buying up big (with 20% staff discount) and am enjoying this new focus. There is a range of clothes I'm especially fond of - Kita Ku. Great lines! And very flattering.
After having lived here with Bob and Margaret for so many months, I've really started to feel that perhaps I might be wearing out my welcome. They haven't said anything and we have been very open about my plans and their needs, but I just felt that the time had come for me to move on. I will miss this lovely rainforest garden, but am looking forward so much to making one of my own eventually.
People keep telling me it's unrealistic to think I have enough money to buy a property with an ocean view, but that's never stopped me before. I once lived in a lovely old authentic miner's cottage in the main street of Bright and paid only $52 a week rent. When I had to leave there (it had been sold and demolished to make way for a new chemist shop), I was told, "Welcome to the real world, you'll never find a place like that again ... you're going to have to pay around $200-$300 a week rent now!" But blow me down, I found another gorgeous little shack in the bush for $25 a week! LOL
The beauty of the shack was that it backed on to a national park and I could walk out my back door, straight up the hill and into the park without seeing a soul. So I used to do it naked! Straight from my bed into the forest. Idyllic.
Speaking of naked. Did you hear me on ABC Radio National the other week? I'd written to "Life Matters" to see if they would be interested in interviewing David about his book, "Finding The Sweet Spot" when he comes to Australia in April and just by way of explanation of how I knew him, I wrote at the bottom of my email that we had met in Second Life.
Within hours I got an email back from one of the programme's producers saying, "Yes, we might do a programme on your friend, but what we're REALLY interested in, is in interviewing you about Second Life." Wow! That was a surprise.
In talking to the producer, I told her about various things I'd done and said that I regarded my life as 'chapters in a book" and that was the theme they presented it as. My time as a hippy, living on a nude beach in Noosa (Queensland); my editorship of a local newspaper in Bright; and my involvement with Second Life and meeting David.
If you have ten minutes without anything to do, here is the link so you can listen to the interview:
My ten minutes of fame (which still leaves me five minutes!)
It was lovely to get telephone calls and emails from friends who heard it. I was kicking myself though because I thought the show would focus on Second Life and I had intended to talk about the community David and I have established there, but it was only a ten minute interview and Richard Aedy, the presenter, left SL until the last bit. I think I was trying to appeal to the masses when I focused on Second Life's attractions of mansions and aeroplanes - things that don't interest me at all, when I really wanted to sing the praises of online communities.
Oh well.
The producer later told me that they often do follow up segments on interesting interviewees and she was kind enough to say I was one of those! lol
So what else has been happening in this little life of mine? Not much. I'm still endeavouring to not spend as much time on SL as I usually do and to make time for other things. Working has helped with that. And it's great to get a few dollars every fortnight.
Still haven't met anyone who is likely to be a romantic focus. Although, now that I'm working down at the dress shop, I'm getting to know one of the other ladies there a bit. She's an incredibly outgoing and confident Greek woman - Jenny. She came to visit me last week - my first visitor! And has invited me to dinner at her place in the next week or so.
Oh! And Louise, the woman I work for, has been asked to do a "Trinny and Susannah" at some local club and I'm going to be her 'model' - i.e. the one who will illustrate what not to wear and how to put together a fashionable 'look'. Since fashion has never really been my thing, I'm looking forward to some tips.
I think that's about it. Drumming still continues to be a joy (djembe drums). I bought a $2 didgeridoo at a garage sale the other week and that will go into our 'suite' of musical instruments. Another local music group closed down recently and gave us their bank account (with $1,000 in it), so we will use that to expand the group's drum stock. A few new members have joined and once we get organised, we will invite whatever members are still left from the other music group, to join us.
Here are some photos of my favourite places, or where I have been and where I'm going ...
Photo 1 - my dream place to live!
Photo 2 - this is where I've been living for the past four months - in my lovely caravan, on the edge of a wonderful little rainforest heaven.
Photo 3 - this is the beach that I'm living three kilometres from for the next month. It has gorgeous little lagoons along a safe stretch of aqua surf, AND it's only a relatively short walk to the nude beach.
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