gifts

Country property

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

 

 

 

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As you may or may not know, it has long been the dream (I would call it “the plan”) to live in the country once the kids have grown up and gone their own way. Living in the inner west of Sydney, is lovely, and we have certainly made the most of the restaurants and cafes but the inner city lifestyle can be wearing.

My job has afforded me the luxury of criss-crossing the state visiting Bowling clubs so that has allowed me to see many of the hidden away corners. I fell in love with the East Gresford, Allynbrook, Dungog area about four years ago.

After years of doing what Anna calls “Property porn” (which I call “research”) keeping a close eye on all the property that comes to the market in the area we liked, and doing the occasional “reccy” we have finally found something. I’m no farmer so finding land that you can’t seriously farm can be a challenge, particularly as Anna’s leading stipulation was not being able to see the neighbours. We had plenty of other items on the checklist and though no property was ever going to tick all the boxes, this one comes pretty close.

Bingleburra Rd Sugarloaf (which sounds completely made up) is 6 minutes outside beautiful Dungog. The town has a hospital and a train station which means it is accessible by train from Sydney. It is 3 hours door to door, which of course real estate agents say is 2.5 hours from Sydney (meaning Hornsby). The town is well-known for the Dungog film festival (which is no more) and iconic test cricketer Doug Walters.

Barjol Sth (as it is to be named) is 159 acres, pretty hilly, about 50% cleared, with 4 small dams and two deep gullies. The road forms one of its boundaries and the property is shaped a little like a cashew. We wont be building on it for a while (maybe a few years) but we have a really interesting local architect (here in Alexandria) keen to be a part of the project.

The views both north-east and south-west are amazing, with the Barrington tops just a few Kilometres away, the property is often tucked up in the clouds and it snows most years. (albeit for a day or two) It is pretty much as far north as it regularly snows in Australia. This is kind of ironic as the reason I concentrated my property search north of Sydney and not south was all about temperature.

We are pretty excited about the future, we realise the purchase means that we will be poor for a while, but that’s ok. As I said, I am no farmer. I’m a city boy, I am going to struggle with killing anything. I guess I will learn, as I am completely aware that sometimes killing is the humane outcome. The aim is to live completely off the grid. Or at the very least to reduce the footprint my past 30 years in Alexandria has caused.

Bring it on!

Who should pay for my children?

/ beaumontmichael

It is apparent that several politicians here in Australia believe that we should be paying for their children. With recent stories about pollies claiming for rock concert tickets for their children as legitimate expenses and business class air travel for holidays and special events. I have had a quick look at the makeup of the “independent” tribunal set up to have a look at politicians entitlements, and frankly I think there are too many politicians on the tribunal to give me any confidence that this will change substantially.

Ultimately we are responsible of course because we keep voting for them. It has often been said that we get the politicians we deserve. Uh oh.

I don’t know how many of you would have travelled in ‘business class’ when you were children, certainly not me. I have only done it once as an adult (and loved it). The idea that it is ok to have your children travel business class and have someone else pick up the tab, someone you do not know, is outrageous. I don’t care if it is within the rules, it is not OK, ok?

It is clear that several of our politicians need help in the “what is OK?” category, so I thought it might be useful if we came up with a test that they could use. Some might say that a test should be completely unnecessary and that pollies should just have a moral compass and exercise it. I may agree with that in principle, but it is quite clear that many don’t have one, and the ownership of one is rooted in the idea that pollies are like the rest of us. Clearly that is a leap in logic, a jump too far.

So what sort of test is reasonable? What about something like, “if I run it by the bloke at the local servo, and he says “you are kidding, right?” then that may work. Maybe it needs to be a little more ‘third person’ along the lines of “I know this guy, and he was thinking of taking a holiday with his kids and going to a live concert, and we were all going to travel business class, and then we were going to send the bill to someone else, but not tell them, what do you think? Would that be Ok?”

Then the politician could wait a while as the bloke at the servo loads his gun, or grabs a filleting knife, or whatever self-protection mechanism he has at his disposal behind the counter and brandishes it with menace.

Yeah I think that works better. Not even our thick-skinned, rudderless politicians could be in doubt about that.

Ultimately though, we are responsible. we keep turning up, we keep relying on the absurd party system in this country to select the best candidates and then we keep voting for these people. The very notion of putting my faith in either party is worrying me, a lot. As utterly annoying as this is though, it could be worse, we could be preparing to vote in the USA I guess.

Note. Michael is the curator of the Life Log Project in Sydney Australia. To learn more go to http://www.thelifelogproject.com.au

Letter to my children

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

About twenty years ago my mother died of a Cerebral Haemorrhage. No warning, no planning no goodbyes. About ten years ago my father died of lung cancer, this was a long lingering farewell. Though both events were incredibly sad, the hole left by someone dying suddenly is difficult to fill in a way that is impossible to explain and beyond compare.

Shortly after the death of my mother I put pen to paper and wrote a letter to each of my two sons. The letter was my farewell, though I had no intention of going anywhere. It was really difficult to write and I cried several times as I scratched my way over the keyboard in my three finger typing style.

The letters contained messages of love and friendship and my dreams for each of them and a few short stories about them growing up. They included short stories of when they made me particularly proud and some advice for each of them.

My two boys are completely different, both beautiful caring strong sensitive young men with their difference best summed up by saying one of them gets anxious if he doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring and the other is always seeking something different for tomorrow. The letter writing gave me a sense of comfort knowing that if I were to bid a hasty departure from this life, my boys would have some conduit to their father. I wasn’t prepared for what happened next though.

Having taken the time to think about what I most wanted to say to each of them and what I felt was most important not to leave unsaid, (and they are two different things) I then began to act differently. Not hugely differently. Not so the family thought I had met-my-maker-in-a-stroke-or-heart-attack kind of a way. But differently none the less. I was more thoughtful, less reactive and much quieter. I began to be much more chilled out about them and their future. Which was nice for me and I’m sure was much more enjoyable for them too.

After all, as I said in my letter to them, above all else I wanted them to know the luxury of having been unconditionally loved by someone and to feel happiness. Neither of these things will be more likely to happen by me fussing about it.

Little did I know at the time that this correspondence would be the precursor for my business some fifteen years later. The Life Log Project helps people do this in a modern way using high quality audio recording. Of course the log can be used for lots of other things too. I have produced logs for people who wanted their families to know things after they had died, to explain divorces, to explain choices, to shine a light on an event or just to supply a delightful back story for the sake of posterity.

What I have noticed is the effect is has on people after they have committed to recording their inner most thoughts. They start to live them

Michael www.thelifelogproject.com.au

You could be a dick

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

Twice a year we award worthy Australians with Medals. I get excited on both Australia Day and the Queens Birthday weekend in anticipation of reading the lists. As someone who has spent so much time recording stories and interviewing people it will not be any shock to you that it is the stories behind the awards that I like the most.

This year we have a cracker. The wonderful Dick Smith was awarded the country’s top honour and his is a lovely story, that should resonate with an entire generation.

Mr Smith is an achiever. The Americans would probably call him a winner. From humble beginnings he toiled to eventual business success and now seems to spend his time giving his money to people who need it more than he does.

The part of his story that should have ears burning everywhere, is his schooling. Marked 45th of 47 students in his year, he went through the apprenticeship route rather than to University. Many a young person is led to believe that if you haven’t made your mark academically by 12 or 13 you are up against it in the success stakes.

Dick Smith would have everyone know that he was not good at school but pretty good at business, leadership, learning and (in my opinion) being a good bloke. Personally I find it interesting that school failed to provide him the opportunity to shine. Though it doesn’t surprise me. The point though is that he didn’t let a thing like academics get in the way of success.

I am not teacher bashing either, some of my favourite people are teachers so this is not about teaching standards or anything like that. It is important for young people to know that the bumps and scuffs that almost inevitably occur during a young persons schooling are not an excuse to give up. In fact they should be providing the motivation to dig a little deeper and work a little harder. Dick Smith’s story shows there is more than one way to skin a cat. We need to be creative in the way we look at success, the way we approach hurdles and the methods we use to shine the light on the big world. Thank you Dick.

When presents are not enough

/ beaumontmichael

I was sitting at my local cafe enjoying my start to the morning while at the next door table a mum and her two young children were playing “gift giving”. The girls were 12 and 10 and it was the older girl’s birthday. As she unwrapped present after present, a pattern was forming. The watch wasn’t quite the right one, the Lego was more suited to someone a little younger, the clothes were not quite what she was looking for and the camera was, well, “what would I need a camera for?”

The cafe floor was strewn with paper as she unwrapped a dozen presents and broke her mother’s heart with every one. I know it is difficult to be a twelve-year-old girl. There was no sign of dad. Though somewhat conspicuously all but one of the presents was wrapped in the same paper, so I’m guessing he supplied that one.

All said and done, the present unveiling was not a stunning success. She was totally underwhelmed. I didn’t understand if she was spoiled rotten and wanted more, or she was hoping dad would appear inside one of the parcels, or she was just out of step with what was going on for some reason. The only real success was the pair of fluffy slippers that immediately went on her feet.

Mum had certainly gone to a lot of trouble to make the birthday presents special and the other daughter sat and watched the gift giving without a single grumble or jealous gripe which makes me think the birthday girl just expected something else perhaps. For whatever the reason, it was heart wrenching to watch the mother give it her very best shot and come up way short.

It was heart wrenching because today as the day my son comes out of hospital where he has been recovering from what was supposed to be a routine day surgery “home by lunchtime” procedure. Three days later, he will be coming home and I can’t wait. I will want to give him a big hug, but he will be both too big to do that with any real effect and still too sore to do with any real gusto.

I hope in years to come the birthday girl will come to realise that, as Mick Jagger has been telling us for years, we can’t always get what we want and that a parent’s love, may be all that you need.