We’ve now spent four of our seven nights in Bali. For four of the women in our party, this is one trip of several we’ve had to this little ‘Island of the Gods’, but it’s the first trip for the fifth lady in our party. The four who have been here previously are all familiar with the broken and dangerous footpaths through-out Bali, we’re familiar with the heavy traffic, the thousands of scooters that zip in and out of traffic, and the families of 4 – 5 people who all squash up together to travel on just one scooter.

However for the fifth member of our party the first three days of this, her first, trip to Bali created a somewhat distorted view of this little tourist haven. Having booked a Lagoon Palace Club room for each of us at the Nusa Dua Beach Hotel and Spa, we have spacious rooms in a quiet and peaceful part of a lovely Balinese style hotel. Our dining is relaxed and peaceful, our rooms well serviced, and the pool adjoining our rooms is used by 16 rooms in total only. Consequently we’re shielded from the crowds inside our hotel, and with the hotel being in Nusa Dua, we’re also shielded from any of the normal hustle and bustle evident in other areas of Bali when we venture outside into the adjoining neighbourhood.

We’ve been for several walks, one of which was down the uncrowded footpaths of Nusa Dua. The following photos were taken between around 10am and 10.45am, so for those of you familiar with the crowded footpaths through-out Bali – these photos may surprise you.

Below looking in one direction and then the other.

A few fountains along the way had statues seated around them, all with arms raised. We tried to ‘fit in’.

Being in the Club rooms at the hotel means of course we have our own small little Club room for breakfast, afternoon tea, pre-dinner cocktails and canapés, or just a decent cup of coffee, glass of juice, or smoothie throughout the day. The breakfast buffet is of course much smaller than the buffet in the main section of the hotel that feeds the masses. But It has all the cereal, yogurt, danish pastries, fruit etc that we’d be taking from any buffet, plus we get to choose our main breakfast off the menu, which is then cooked to order in the little kitchen tucked into the side of the room.

From our breakfast room we look out onto a wide expanse of green lawns, fringed with tall bamboo, and with the tinkle of fountains in the landscaped central lake. It’s so serene. Just gorgeous.

This morning I took a walk over to look at the huge breakfast buffet that caters to the majority of the hotel guests. Browsing the buffet confirmed my thoughts – whilst there is much more food on display, there’s nothing on the big buffet that I feel I’m missing out on in our gorgeous little Club dining room. I certainly don’t miss the push and shove of the multitude around the big buffet either.

No serene view, and crowds milling around the food choices in the main dining area – We made a good choice opting out of this I think (I’m not really a snob – well perhaps just a little bit).

Yesterday we had a driver pick us up to drive us to the cultural centre, and then on to Jimbaran Beach for a seafood barbecue. Our Bali Newbie chose to sit in the front seat, and had us in hysterics at her comments as she saw for the first time, the real Bali. After three and a half days in clean, sheltered Nusa Dua, and no matter the amount of warnings we had issued to the effect that, ‘what she was seeing in our little spot isn’t the real Bali’, I think she was somewhat shocked at what she encountered. The scooters zipping in and out, some carrying whole families, the broken roads, the traffic jams, the dangerous conditions as one vehicle makes way for another coming in the opposite direction, and the drivers skill as he carefully avoids tumbling our vehicle into the step drop off at the side of the road under repair. We encountered a 30 minute delay at just one set of traffic lights on our return to the hotel, a delay which seemed to be business as usual according to our driver.

Throughout the chaos of the trip though, also witnessed was the other side to Bali’s busyness. The curtesy. Yes, the Balinese are the most courteous race of people I’ve ever had the good fortune to encounter. They happily give way to oncoming traffic, in fact in one spot a driver from the oncoming side exited his vehicle, stopped other traffic and carefully directed our driver around a particularly hazardess section in the road repairs. The Balinese are the happiest of people, they always have a smile, they’re gentle and caring and their pride is genuine and well placed. They are proud of who they are, proud of their jobs no matter how menial, and proud to serve their customers. I love Bali, I love the Balinese people.

Oh and before I close – here’s a snap of one of the early morning groundsmen in our hotel. Note the broom he’s sweeping the lawn with.

A lovely, relaxing holiday with just enough time out in the real Bali to help us appreciate where we have chosen to stay. What a pleasure!

Four ladies from our Busselton walking group, plus an old friend from Perth decided to have a girls week away in Bali. I thought I’d better post a few photos so as the other ladies from our group don’t start thinking we’ve gotten ourselves lost. So here goes:

Pretending we had one or two too many(I promise we hadn’t)

Watching the beach get cleaned on one of our early morning walks.

The main pools where the masses swim

Our own private little pool- we’ve been spending a lot of time here floating around and chatting.

Booking Sunday Brunch at the Mulia after ‘just a little walk’ to get there. (Now there’s a story).

Scrubbed up for Cocktails before the seafood barbecue and fire dance show.

Tables all set up for the Seafood barbecue

Having a great time, to busy to write much but there will be more to come soon I’m sure…..

I mentioned earlier in the year that we had moved into a rental property. We had hoped to buy that little house, but it wasn’t to be. Luckily we found ourselves a little villa. It’s the rear unit in a group of three unattached properties, just a little 3 x 1, open plan place with a single garage.

The unit we had in Nova Village was actually a good sized unit, much bigger than homes usually associated with retirement villages. We hadn’t considered that move as down sizing at all. This villa though is definitely a ‘down size’, so it’s been a bit of a trial deciding what stays and what goes.

We sold off the bigger things that we knew wouldn’t fit as soon as our offer was accepted. Then followed a garage sale to get rid of an accumulation of the smaller ‘stuff’, and some of my pot plants.

We moved in last week. It’s been tough having two moves within such a short time. Both Paul and I are tired. However, the move did go well with no hiccups really, and only one broken vase (we have tile floors in the new villa, and tile floors are unforgiving when glass vases are dropped on them). We have found a place for most things, and most things are now in their place. We still have a few pictures to hang, a shelf or two to put up, and we’re waiting for a plumber to add the plumbing for our fridge, and to do a couple of minor alterations to the location of taps etc.

Our master bedroom has a small built in robe, and a rather large chest of drawers has been fitted into it. As this has reduced the available hanging space considerably, the previous owner had additional wardrobes fitted at either side of the bed, much like a caravan bed. We thought that was a stupid thing to do! However only a few days into living in the house and our plans to remove both the drawers from the walk in robe, and the robes at either side of the bed changed. They’ve proved themselves to useful, so they’re staying where they are, at least for the foreseeable future. We fitted our bedhead behind the bed, and found some small touch lights that clip onto the bedhead. It means we don’t have bedside tables, so we’re on the look-out for an idea that will allow us to add some sort of ‘fold out of the way’ bedside table for our wake up cuppa in the morning which we usually enjoy in bed. In the meantime we have little urns that tuck out of the way at the sides of the bedroom, each with a solid top that pulls up beside the bed in the mornings to serve as our tea cup stand. It’s working for now.

Although the guest room is small, it also has a small walk in robe, and it fits a queenside bed with small bedsides. It should be comfortable enough for visitors. Plus we have a third bedroom, which we’re utilising as a study, and as an overflow room for all manner of things (every house needs a junk room).

We only have one bathroom which has two way access, from the master and from the hallway. So any overnight visitors don’t have the luxury of having their own bathroom. Also the villa has only one toilet. It’s a long time since we’ve had a house with only one loo, but hey, I grew up in a house with six siblings and we only had one toilet, and one bathroom. Visitors didn’t even have their own bedroom, they either slept in the lounge, or someone in the house gave up their bed for them. They shared our one and only toilet, and our one and only bathroom. In our affluent Australian society I had formed the opinion that as a host I needed to provide almost Hotel like accommodation for any overnight visitors – I’ve since re-thought that idea. They can share!

The toilet is separate from the bathroom, and one day we may add a small hand basin so as to make that a powder room. We also may remove the bath from the bathroom one day so as to make room for a double vanity for Paul and I, and to make room for a second toilet, but that isn’t a necessity. Having lost a considerable amount of money by vacating the Retirement Village (yes retirement villages are expensive to exit, and don’t let anyone tell you differently), we now have to watch our pennies a little more than we’ve had to in the past, so we may just have to ‘make do.’

The villa is only a couple of hundred metres from the shores of beautiful Geographe bay, that’s as the crow flies. To walk there it’s less than 500 metres from walking out of our front door to dipping our toes in the waters of the Indian Ocean. Plus we’re only 1 kilometre from our front door to the entrance door of Busselton’s main shopping centre.

Our villa is small, certainly no mansion for a millionaire, but it’s clean, in good repair, and there’s certainly room for friends and family. With the shops and the ocean so close by, I think we’ve bought well. Oh, and Mr Tilly – he went to a friends and stayed overnight while we did the bulk of the moving. When Beth brought him to his new home after most things had been moved in, he perused all the rooms, plonked himself down, and hasn’t missed a beat since. I think the new place has been given his stamp of approval! And that’s a real pleasure to observe!

Many games provide fun, but Bridge grips you. It exercises your mind. Your mind can rust, you know, but Bridge prevents the rust from forming.”Omar Sharif.

Having gained a basic understanding of the card game Duplicate Bridge some years ago in Perth, and prior to moving to Busselton, Paul and I had rarely had the chance to consolidate our learning. For those of you not familiar with this card game, there are many systems that one can use to play the game. The system we first learned to play in was called, Acol. That was the preferred system played in Western Australia at the time, whilst the Eastern States played predominantly in a system referred to as, American Standard. In the years between us first getting a basic understanding of the Acol bidding system of the game, and returning to the game in recent years Western Australians have changed their preferred system and now also play predominantly in American Standard. When we decided to return to the game we undertook some refresher lessons with the Busselton Club, but this time using the American Standard system for our bidding.

The Busselton Bridge Club doesn’t have its own rooms. On Monday afternoons they rent rooms at the Dunsborough Community Centre, and on Wednesday afternoons they rent rooms at the Busselton tennis club. The club has a newish member who, like many others, has become an addict to the game of Bridge (yes, be warned the game is super addictive). Recognising the adverse effect that both Covid, and Bridge on line has been having on the game, reflected by dwindling numbers in Bridge clubs throughout the country, this dedicated Bridge Player has been diligently conducting Bridge lessons and co-ercing newbies to the game to jump in the deep end and to come over to the club sessions to play.

At this point in time I’ll relate a little about my introduction to the game of Bridge. I learned to play in Perth some years ago, and was one of more than 50 people in the class. Following on from 18 x 3 hour classes, the club conducted follow up, supervised play sessions to enable the learners to consolidate their learning. Less than half continued on with the supervised sessions. To my knowledge I was the only one from that class who eventually ventured into playing in the club sessions, and that was only because the partner of the teacher who taught the lessons saw some potential in my play and offered to mentor me into ‘real play’. Those first times of playing in normal club sessions are up there amongst the most daunting experiences of my life. I relate my initial experience so as to be able to relate the differences between both learning in a big city club and learning in a smaller regional centre, and also the introduction to playing at club level.

Because the big city clubs have their own club rooms, the rooms are constantly set up with the tables ready to play. Most of the city clubs are able to be sectioned off so as to allow normal play sessions to be conducted alongside supervised play sessions, and as the club rooms are for Bridge exclusively, multiple numbers of sessions can be held over a week. Most city clubs run approximately three week-day games, 1 – 2 week-end games, and 1 -2 week night sessions, as well as a few learners and supervised sessions. It’s these learner and supervised sessions that enable the clubs to grow, or at least to sustain numbers.

Compare this to our Busselton club. We have to pay rent to hire the rooms for our twice weekly club games. Our tables and computers have to be set up, and taken down before and after each game. If lessons or supervised sessions are conducted this means hiring yet another venue. The lessons, along with the games are literally, ‘all over the place’. It would be lovely if the Busselton Council recognised the contribution that the game of Bridge made to the mental health of many of its residents and supplied us with our own club rooms to rent on a permanent basis, as is the case in many other areas throughout the country. But alas to date that hasn’t happened.

As I mentioned earlier Covid caused a massive decline in the numbers of Bridge players, and I think this has been the case all over the world. When people couldn’t attend the sessions due to isolation rules many started to play on line, and some have never returned to play in the clubs. With many never having returned to play in the Bridge Clubs, I fear the numbers could be dwindling all over the country, if not the world. Due to the dedication, tenacity and sheer single mindedness of one particular Busselton Club member though, I’m pleased to say, our club, my club, The Busselton Bridge Club, is growing in numbers.

I applaud Linda her tenacity, her dedication and her ability to persevere when I’m sure at times she must feel like throwing in the towel, so to speak. I applaud her ability to get her learners to ‘jump in the deep end’, and with only a sketchy knowledge of the basics of Bridge, she coerces many of her Bridge students to commence playing at club level. Similarly, I applaud all of the new comers who do take the plunge and who come up to play. I appreciate how daunting it must be for you all. Your bravery astounds me!

If you’d like to learn Bridge and you live in Busselton or the south west area of WA, please make contact with our club. Our contact details are:

Phone	0417 981 585
Email	bussbridgesecretary@gmail.com

If however you already have a basic understanding of the game and aren’t currently playing at a club level, we’d love to see you come along to one of our sessions.

But we can promise we’ll do our best to welcome you to our tables, to our club, The Busselton Bridge Club.

I’m pleased to say we found ourselves a little place to buy. Finding anything at all in the current market is a bit of miracle. Most places are listed with an ‘under offer’ notice already attached. Investors are buying anything reasonably priced for their self managed superfunds, or to minimise their taxes with the use of negative gearing. I feel for anyone trying to buy their first home. I don’t think I’ve ever seen times as tough for buyers as these in real estate.

Not only have we manage to secure a place but the place we found ticks not one, but two of either/or wants. We wanted to be either within walking distance of the beach, or walking distance to the shops. We found a triplex that meets both criteria. It’s small, and only has one bathroom, but the main bedroom is a good size, it has a reasonable sized guest room, a third bedroom that we will probably use as a study, and a small open plan living area. We’ll be able to make it work – as I’ve said before, ‘wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home’. We’ll make this place our next and hopefully our final home. We’re getting to old for all this moving caper.

Here’s a bit of sneak look:

The bathroom is an okay size with ensuite access, but most of the space is taken up with a bath, a bath we’ll most likely not use. In time I’d like to remove the bath, add a bigger double vanity and possibly a toilet (there’s only one toilet in the villa, it’s off the laundry). Until we get to that though, I found some inspiration for how to make use of the bath in a way that will provide more storage. Ours won’t be the same but you’ll get the idea from the photos below.

It’s close to town, so it’ll be less than a 15 minute walk to supermarkets, pubs, restaurants, and cafes. The beach is 500 metres away. I had hoped to find a place that was light and bright, but sadly I don’t think this place is going to fit that bill as well as I’d have liked. It has white gauzy curtains at the windows though, windows that face to the east, so maybe, just maybe, if those curtains are pulled back it may let in some early morning sun. I hope so. In the current market though, one has to take what one can get and make the most of it.

We’ve been really busy since finding the house. We don’t move until 8 May, so it’s quite a long wait, but as we don’t want to be moving surplus furniture into the villa we’ve been busy listing and selling what we know won’t work. It’s been a crazy time. A garage sale over Easter saw off most of what remained after two weeks of listing all the bigger items on Facebook Buy and Sell. We’d been contemplating selling off our up-cycled dining suite, but had decided we’d wait and see. It’s an 1800 long table, and we figure a 1500 long table would fit the space better. However someone attending the garage sale came inside to look at a chair we had for sale, spied the dining suite and wanted to make us an offer. We agreed on a price and said good-bye to our suite.

The very next day we found ourselves another one to up-cycle. It’s a 50 year old Tasmanian Blackwood suite, with a 1500 long extension table and six comfortable, low backed, red velvet chairs. Yes – red velvet! Take a look – I wonder if you’ll be able to see the potential we can see in it.

The wood is very good, and the size perfect for our new dining space. But mmm – those chairs! Well believe it not, it was those chairs that attracted me the most. We had some similar styled chairs last century with the low back that hugged and supported our lumber region better than any chair before or since has. I loved them, they were just soooo comfortable in a way that higher backed chairs never are. The chairs will be painted white (sacrilege I hear my brother saying, who thinks good wood should never be painted). The turned legs and base of the table will also be painted in the same white semi-gloss. The table top, along with its extension piece will be sanded back and refinished showcasing its natural grain. And that red velvet – well that’s going too. We’ve found a nice navy and white furnishing fabric and are in the midst of re-upolstering the seats. I can’t wait to show the before and after photos when the project is complete.

With most of the selling of our surplus now complete, we were feeling like we were in limbo, so although the dining suite isn’t a huge project, it will help to fill the time over the next couple of weeks as we hit a lull – the calm before the next moving house storm! It’s been a tough couple of months, and it’s not over yet. Hectic as hell for weeks at a time, then a lull, then hectic as hell again. We don’t have family nearby that can help and support us, but fortunately we have a wonderful group of friends who help to prop us up when the going gets tough. I don’t think I could have coped with all this without the wonderful moral support that comes from such a good group of friends. You all know who you are. You mean the world to us! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Our lovely little home in the not so lovely retirement village is now sold and settled. We’re comfortably living in a little rental house, a house which we’d love to buy, but sadly it’s not going to be for sale any time soon. In the not to distant future the owner plans to move in when her circumstances allow. Our rental is on a periodical lease. It suits us not to be tied into a longer lease while we look for something suitable to buy, and it suits the owners because when their circumstances do change, which is expected to happen in the near future, they don’t have to wait out a tenants long lease period. This, of course means we have to find something suitable to buy sooner rather than later.

We hadn’t planned on falling in love with the rental house, we were just appreciative of finding a place to rent. As with any house though, we’ve learnt a bit more from having lived in this one, and have added another ‘must have’ for our next house, and this one is the reason we’ve fallen in love with this house. The house is by no means any palace, but it gets amazing north/east sun through the living area, and it gets amazing air flow through the home when the cool breezes start to blow in the late afternoon. We’ve owned and lived in lots of houses, but never have we lived in any before built so suitably to capture the best of weather. The house is light, bright and airy, which lifts the spirits and immediately makes the place feel like a home. I can understand why the owners are keeping it for their retirement house.

So we look. Hourly we look through the real estate sites searching for a suitable place to buy. It’s definitely a seller’s market, so it’s clear we’re going to have to pounce on anything suitable that comes up quickly. It’s also clear we’re going to have to pay top dollar. Houses are being sold before they even hit the market. We have our list of ‘must haves’, which now includes preferably a north/east aspect for the living areas, but if not north/east, then at the very least an easterly aspect so as to capture the early morning sun. We have our list of ‘wants’ too. We’re trying to keep the ‘must haves’ list small, and to be flexible with the list of ‘wants’.

We thought we had found a potential house yesterday and are due to inspect it along with 20 or more other people tomorrow. However, the house is tenanted until October. Our initial thoughts were that this wouldn’t pose a problem, but after sleeping on it overnight the potential pitfalls have scared me off somewhat. Firstly, the rent the tenant pays is small, so we’d be getting a smaller return for our investment for six months than we’re getting with our money left in the bank. That’s no big deal in the scheme of things, but added to that is losses to be factored in from Centrelink (we get a pension, so are eligible for rent assistance – we’d lose that), again, no big deal in the scheme of things. Then the really scary things came to mine – our rental house is unlikely to be available until October which will probably mean another move. In a market where houses to rent are as scarce as hen’s teeth that could prove to be a nightmare. We could end up homeless.

Next the house is close to the area where we’d like to be, but it’s not actually in our ‘perfect area’. The ‘perfect area’ though is only on our ‘want list’ so is something we’re flexible with. With such a long wait until we can take up residence there, what if something in our ‘perfect area’ became available in the meantime, what if several came up – how disappointed and cheated would we be feeling. Paul says this can happen if we have moved into our new home already, and I have to agree. Somehow though I think I’d feel a lot more cheated if we hadn’t had a chance to put our stamp on any home we’ve purchased. As I said in my last post, ‘wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home’, but I do need to be able to ‘hang my hat’ there.

I’m certainly not known for being cautious in real estate. I’ve always trusted my gut, and we’ve always landed on our feet in past dealings. We’ve never purchased before though in any market that compares to this scorching, hot, ‘seller’s market’. At any time the bottom could fall out of the market. If the market pushes us into a panic buy, this time there’s the potential for us to get burnt badly. This time my gut is telling me to be careful, not to panic buy, to assess the potential pitfalls. Just like jumping into the mighty Murray River on a scorching hot summer’s day, the roots under the surface have to be carefully assessed for safety. Yes, I want that swim, but not at any cost. The scorching conditions doesn’t mean caution can be thrown to the wind – no, I think we need to be extra careful. I think it’s time to pay careful attention to my gut. We need to make sure the waters are safe before diving in.

We moved all the shed stuff into the rental house. Then we hired a truck and moved our larger items last Monday. It was hard work, and I’ve told Paul that for the next move we really must hire a removal company, at least for the big heavy stuff. I don’t mind hiring the truck, like we did this time, one with the lift on the back, and moving the smaller items and the heavy plants. Things like double fridges, front loading washing machines, and big latex mattresses though – that’s just too much to ask of two old codgers. The fact that neither of us sustained an injury was sheer good luck rather than good management, although I do have to give it to Paul, he does think things out carefully to minimise the risk. He’s a bit of a ‘do it yourself’ type person, but there’s sometimes when things are definitely best left to the professionals.

The house we’ve been lucky enough to pick up as a short term rental on a periodical lease, has in fact been leased for years. Consequently, the gardens have been badly neglected. It’s rather sad that tenants don’t put a bit of effort into maintaining a garden. We’re not like that – I can’t ignore a garden, and this garden has so much potential. Since moving in almost two weeks ago we’ve trimmed the worst offending overgrown branches off the beautiful old, but very neglected rose bushes, we’ve weeded the beds, and we’ve given them some wetta soil, a bit of fertiliser and lots of water. Almost overnight they rewarded us with a few buds, and have been providing us with roses for our dining room table ever since. I love old roses. They reward any TLC threefold.

The bare garden in the centre of the rose garden to the west of the house has given me a place to leave my potted succulents, rocks, driftwood and garden critters which are awaiting their next permanent home.

The rose garden is adjacent to what is supposed to be the alfresco area. The air conditioning unit is in the alfresco area, and it gets the hot afternoon sun from the West, so we’ve chosen a verandah at the front of the house on the north east corner for our outdoor area. The dedicated alfresco to the west makes a good shade house though for my shade loving pot plants.

To the south of this area is another patch of lawn. The whole garden is wonderfully laid out into lots of different ‘garden rooms’. Whilst this area to the south of what I’m using as a shade house for my plants is just plain lawn, it has me dreaming of a better use – a fire pit area for in the winter. If it were my house this is what I envisage in this area.

To the rear of the house on the south side is a pink, double hibiscus, much in need of being cut back a bit. It’s quite spindly and has lots of dead wood. I made a bit of a start on it today, but it’ll take a bit of time to get everything into any sort of shape. Underneath the hibiscus are the most gorgeous pink centred bromeliads. The soil was as dry as a bone, but a bit of wetta soil and a good soaking has that on track. The flowers dropping from the hibiscus is providing good mulch so that’s probably helped keep the bromeliads alive.

The garden to the east is perhaps the most neglected. I don’t know if we’ll get to that while we’re living here. We’ve pulled some creeper out that had been choking the two frangipanis, and we’re making sure they get some water, but apart from that I’m not sure what I could do with this garden as a short term tenant. Saying that though, we’d absolutely love it if the owners had a change of plan and decided to sell the house. We’d buy it in an instant. It’s just the type of place we could sink our heart and soul into. We can see so much potential in the garden. A bit of love, and a lot of hard work could transform what is a rather neglected garden into a virtual paradise. This bit of garden to the east is just begging for raised vegetable beds.

We’ve done a lot of work this week in the front garden to the north. All of the gardens were choked full of couch grass. It’s been hard work to get all the dead plants and the couch grass out, but I think we’ve broken the back of it. From now on we should be able to keep on top of it. We’ve rescued some almost dead agapanthus and have dotted them around the garden beds, and have added some white vincas, and blue salvias. In a month or so I imagine they’ll start to put on a bit of a display. Our potted blueberries have found a temporary home in front of our outdoor table and are helping to fill the gap until the plants start to thrive. There’s a lovely mature olive tree in the front garden with a mass of Elk Horn Ferns attached. The Elk ferns were almost dead when we arrived, but they’re starting to look good now.

It’s a lovely place to sit in the late afternoon with a drink after a hard days work in the garden. As I look out at the now well cut and fertilised lawn, the freshly weeded and planted garden beds, the elk ferns on the olive tree, and the little space I found for my much loved Buddha, I realise that I can make almost any place home. However, this particular house – well this one really has me day dreaming…..

After two and half years we’ve decided that living in the close knit confines of a Retirement village isn’t for us. It’s time to move on….

We’ve done all we can with the small garden. We chose succulents for our front garden. Most of the plants came with us as small cuttings from our last house. From just a small piece poked into the ground, two and half years later it’s grown to be full garden. The rocks have been gathered from various places, and the critters have mainly been gifted to us from family and friends.

All of the rocks and critters will come with us, along with potted cuttings from each plant. I’ll love watching the little cuttings form the basis of a new succulent garden one day.

Our rear courtyard garden was bland walls with brick paving up to the walls when we moved in. It took a while to get this garden right. We ended up with trellis, and mirrors on the wall to create a feeling of space. We started off with fake greenery, but preferred the real thing. Bunnings raised garden beds went in with scented jasmine to ramble around the mirrors. For the adjacent wall we chose clumping bamboo. With miniature strelitzias, tropical greenery, and colourful impatiens we’ve been very happy with result.

The birdbath in the corner of the garden will come with us, as will the Buddha.

Where our own next garden will be is yet to be decided. The real estate market is manic at the moment. No sooner does a house go on the market and it goes under offer almost immediately. We’ve been very fortunate that we’ve found a rental with a periodical lease. We can’t take to long to find somewhere permanent though as the owner expects her circumstances will change in the not to distant future, a change that will allow her to move into the house herself. Once that change occurs I expect we’ll need to be ready to move within 6 – 8 weeks. In the meantime if we find something suitable to buy, we will also be able to give a similar amount of notice to allow time for settlement of our new house. We’re not tied to a lengthy lease.

So, why the move I hear you ask? A few things attracted us to the village two and half years ago. The quality and size of the house is not what one would expect in a retirement house. It’s a spacious house with beautiful hard wood Marri floors. It has a really good sized living area, a king sized master bedroom with a good sized ensuite, a Queen sized guest room also with it’s own ensuite, plus another good sized living room which can be used as a study, craft room, third bedroom, or in our case, a theatre room. This, together with parking for our caravan at our rear gate attracted us, so we thought it was worth giving it a try. (0ur caravan is now long gone).

We did, however, have reservations about living in such a close knit community. Our plan was to keep pretty much to ourselves. Ha! So much for plans. We did start getting involved, and then the problems started. We tried to back track, but that just put us a ‘damned if you do, and damned if you don’t’ situation. It became quite stressful.

I’m sure it’d all have settled down, but once bitten twice shy. We decided to cut our loses and move on sooner rather than later. Fortunately there’s a waiting list for homes in our village so it only took a little over a week for the offers to start coming in.

We will be moving out prior to settlement. It’ll take us a couple of weeks to fully move, then we’ll have to remove all the picture hooks, give everything a fresh coat of paint, and get the carpets cleaned for the new owners.

Over the past two days we’ve taken succulent cuttings and our garden rocks to the rental house, as well as a good bit of shed stuff. The house we’ll be renting has been vacant for a little while now. It’s all been freshly painted, and has had new floor coverings laid. So the house is fresh and lovely. The garden needs some work though. Yesterday paul mowed lawns, and we’ve pruned back roses and creepers and watered some very dried out stag horn ferns. It feels good, really good to have a decent sized garden to get my teeth into. Of course, we won’t be planting a lot in the new garden. But we’ll tidy up what’s there, and will get it all thriving, and we’ll get all our cuttings thriving in pots ready for our own new place – when we find it.

So here we go again, yet another move! Clearly it wont be our last, and quite likely wont even be our second to last. With the current shortage of available homes to buy, getting a house that perfectly suits us would be almost too much to hope for. Fingers are crossed that, even though the perfect home may allude us in this current housing crisis, at least a suitable roof over our head will eventuate before we have to vacate our temporary rental house. Scary eh!

We arrived back into Bali for the second time this year three nights ago. For this trip we have chosen the Padma, approximately 40 minutes drive north of Ubud.

The Padma, chosen after being highly recommended by a friend has lived up to expectations. From the misty outlook over dense tropical forest, to the steep, 1 kilometre walk down the winding paths to the tranquil, babbling creek that runs below, it’d be hard not to find this place, relaxing, impressive, memorable……

But as with our last trip to Bali earlier this year, it’s the people that impress me the most. The Balinese people are extremely family orientated, and proud to be so. The Balinese tradition is that at least one of the sons should marry and bring his bride into the family home. As the son’s parent’s grow old, it becomes the son and his family’s responsibility to care for them. No-one seems to resent this, in fact everyone I speak to seems to accept this as both an honour and a privilege.

What happens though to couples who aren’t fortunate enough to have sons – girls seem to accept, albeit sometimes with sadness, that they will move into their husband’s family home, even if it means leaving their parents without any offspring to care for them as they age. When this is the case I believe the responsibility of caring for any son-less couple as they age falls to the father’s brother’s family, (the daughter’s uncle).

Elta, who seems to be our main hostess tells me she married this year in February. Elta is the oldest of three girls and has no brothers. Apparently, there can be (but not always), a certain amount of social stigma should a newly married couple take up residence in the home of the wife’s parents, as apposed to the son’s parent’s home. Elta’s parents spoke with her during her teenage years suggesting that any prospective partners in the future be sounded out for their acceptance of moving into Elta’s family home. So that is just what Elta did. She told me that one of the happiest moments of her life was when her chosen partner indicated he had no reservations about this change to tradition. They’re now living happily in the back of her parents home in what’s called a Bale, which I think is a seperate abode on the same property. Her parents and her two younger sisters live in the main family home. It seems that both Elta and her parents hope the younger sisters will follow suit and also find partners that will happily live on the parents property. It sounds like there’ll be space found for them all either in the family abode, or by building a seperate bale on the same land.

I asked Elta about crime in Bali. Apparently there is not much of a crime rate here, however, like everywhere, Cyber-crime is on the rise. We ourselves fell victim to Cyber-crime twice just getting to Bali, the first time when we attempted to complete our Electronic Visa to enter Bali on line, and the second time when we attempted to do our Electronic Customs Declaration, also on line before entering the country. It wasn’t till we arrived into Denpasar airport that we became aware we had fallen victim to scammers. Fortunately though, when we return to Australia, I think we’ll be able to lodge a dispute with our bank, and I think we’ll get our money back. We’d like to lodge the dispute earlier, however to do so is likely to result in cancellation of current credit card, and that would leave us in a precarious financial situation for the rest of our holiday. So for now we’re just monitoring our account, and hoping we don’t see any unexpected money leave it.

During this conversation with Elta I was almost brought to tears as she related how she’d attempted to book a villa in Kuta for a few nights for herself and her husband following their wedding in February. Living in an inland village, they had been looking forward to a couple of nights by the seaside. However, they fell victim to scammers when booking their villa, and it seems that as they didn’t book through the safety of a travel agent, they have no recall. They lost their money, and so had no honeymoon away for a few nights at the seaside on their own. I gather they are now saving hard, hoping that one day before children arrive that they can treat themselves to a short holiday somewhere nice. I so hope she gets her wish.

I love getting to know the Balinese people. In Australia we ourselves are considered at best, comfortable financially, but by no means are we considered wealthy by Australian standards. Yet we can afford trips to Bali staying in luxury resorts, and we have travelled to many overseas countries. For most of the Balinese people, a few days holiday in a different location on their own island is the most their modest incomes can stretch to. Yet these people never fail to impress me with their genuine smiles, their happiness, and the pride they take in their jobs. By comparison, hospitality staff in Australia are often ashamed of their jobs, and their attitude when waiting on clients tables, or making up a hotel room bed can sometimes be resentful.

I often consider myself to be truly lucky to be living in Australia, but when holidaying in Bali, I wonder…… Are we really that lucky after all in Australia. Will I still feel lucky if I end up living the final years of my life, as many Australians do, in the lonely ward of some aged care facility. Will I be thinking in the final years of my life that it would have been nice to have been born into a financially poor, but family rich Balinese village. A holiday on this gorgeous Island certainly provides food for thought……