our house – OZTHOUGHTS

We were living in China when our son (Jake) suggested that we all settle in Australia and build a house. We were planning to live in rural France when we stopped working, and so this was a real change in plans for us. Our plans were made in the time that Jake was living in France, so we felt that living in France as retirees would fit the bill admirably, so we were thrown into confusion by the fact that he was thinking of living in Australia.

We were busy finding all about a house in rural France when he suggested this, and researching the idea of farms in France (completely ignoring the idea of how we would live in rural France as retirees and be ultimately dependent on others for transport, which we are in Australia).

So we were happily thoughtless about transport and where we lived. So we agreed that we would live in Australia when we finally retired and gave no thought to where we would actually live.

And also we decided to build our house (we couldn’t afford a “real” builder).

We also left the decision of where it would be in Australia to Jake and his then wife, Caroline and didn’t really give it a thought. It was enough that it would be in Australia and we didn’t really care where.

So, they chose to live in Brisbane, in the State of Queensland (for those who don’t know where Brisbane is). And they chose to live in a more or less vertical bit of land about 40 km from Brisbane. This was because it was cheap, and a horizontal bit of land was too expensive. So we had to work on a near vertical bit of land. Which entailed a bunch of builders working to create terraces (which have lasted for 12 years, in spite of loads of rain) and I had to build a load of Guillotines for supports……