Time to jump - March 2017
Sometimes, life sends you in a particular direction. Maybe at first you don't know why. A few months ago, we were planning to travel in our caravan for a year. Then things we didn't expect happened. Now, we're taking that big jump into the semi unknown......
Last December, Greg spent three weeks in hospital and in that time, received a lot of bad news about his health. We were on the cusp of setting off in the caravan for a year, until the doctors told us not to. I actually had to ring the real estate agent very early one morning to say "don't sign the lease documents" as she had tenants ready to move into our home. But, Greg was home for Christmas, and we had started to get some good news so we entered 2017 with a little more optimism.
We travelled to Tasmania in January for a long planned holiday and I did a bit of soul searching walking on that beach out the front of Marg's house. I wasn't happy at work, I was worried about Greg, I was disappointed we weren't off travelling, so I felt we needed something different. But what was that?
While in Tassie, we discovered a vineyard for sale. It was a small boutique enterprise, only 20 minutes from Marg's place, it would be something we could work at together - maybe this would be the something different we needed. Lots of inspections, research, discussions with Council which uncovered a few issues, but by the time we got home, we felt informed enough to make an offer - well below asking price. Turns out someone else submitted an offer at the same time. Turns out our dollar offerings were the same. But, as we had a condition dependent on the sale of our house, the other offer was accepted. It wasn't meant to be.
But the seed had been planted. We needed a change. We decided to put our house on the market, so we could be the unconditional offer next time. It sold within 3 business days!! WOW - this was getting real! Within 7 weeks we would be homeless! So we trawled the internet for properties in Tasmania and lined up 7 inspections one Saturday - that was tiring! We loved one, and ruled out the rest. Two weeks later, we came back to do a second inspection on that one, and to look at another. We loved them both, for different reasons. And then sent another two weeks procrastinating over which one was best for us. Eventually, we put in an offer on the second property and crossed our fingers.
In the meantime, my 17 1/2 years at the City of Whittlesea came to an end. It was sad to be leaving this way but I was comfortable enough with what was happening and knew it was the leap I needed to make. My last day was emotional, but beautiful. The team all dressed up in red for me, people said lovely things about me, and I got this fabulous street sign!
Although it felt very weird to not be going to work, we had a house and two sheds to pack up within 3 weeks! Then one day, in the middle of dust and stuffing boxes in the shed, I got the call to say our offer had not been accepted. I cried. What was happening, where we were meant to go? Eventually we decided, we were meant to go to the other place, the first one we had seen that day we looked at 7 properties. We submitted yet another offer, praying for third time lucky. Driving home from picking up the caravan from repairs, the call came through that we had been accepted. We are off to Bangor in Tasmania!
So we're looking forward to this jump with excitement. We don't know everything it will bring but that's the excitement of the unknown.
posted by Tracey @ 1:12 pm
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