A FAREWELL NOTE
MG Car Club of South Australia
A FAREWELL NOTE
From... Karin & Lindsay Caffin
Dear Friends
indsay and I have been caught up in a bit
L of a whirlwind these last few months. In February we explored the mid northern coast of NSW and found ourselves leaning strongly to relocating to a more temperate climate. We had discussed this over the last year or so but never took the opportunity to explore possibilities. We decided that we would‘ test the waters’ and so put our house on the market late February, thinking that it would take 3 months or more to sell. It sold in one day; we had a settlement time of 4 weeks, so in that time we were faced with a huge challenge. Find a house, move 8 years of life, declutter, let family and friends know. We didn’ t do so well with the declutter, seems we threw heaps out, Vinnies got lots of treasures, but in the last days of packing, making decisions about what to keep and not keep, became too hard, so now we have the same stuff to contemplate. Letting friends know became difficult too, we wanted time to explain, to say farewell and we ran out of time. In addition to climate wishes, we also wanted more space around us. I had run out of space for gardening, Lindsay had run out of things to build and we felt like we were beginning to be hemmed in by the many houses being demolished in our area with two taking the place of one. There were times when we asked ourselves what in heavens name were we doing, we had renovated West Lakes so that we could be there forever, the brewery was perfectly set up, the garden kept producing and we had the beach so close to us. But one aspect that kept creeping in was that feeling,‘ it’ s time to move’. We have spent the last 50 years together in many different places. Each of those places a lifetime in themselves. We lived and worked in Woomera, then Adelaide, Wilmington,( while working in Port Augusta), Murray Bridge, then Thailand for 5 years and Japan for 10. The longest we have lived in any place has been 10 years, so we think that we were suffering from itchy feet! We found a house on 5000 square metres of land,( one and a quarter acres), in Lawrence
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We found a house on 5000 square metres of land,( one and a quarter acres), in Lawrence NSW. We moved in on April 10 th, and still have boxes unpacked as we try to get some order into the place. There are lots of jobs to be done, the shed has no power, we have to remodel the kitchen, Lindsay needs to reestablish his microbrewery, and of course the garden needs work. We were going to extend the current shed but could not as it would encroach on the‘ septic field’. NSW has these very interesting laws regarding septic tanks and run off into a‘ field’. So now we need to build a new shed in front of the existing one. We do not live far from the Clarence River, and are in a flood free area. Mind you, when it rains here, the bottom paddock gets a bit soggy. One day it rained and we got Adelaide’ s annual rainfall! We do hear that the winter nights can be a bit chilly, but neighbours here don’ t use heating very much at all. There will be more humidity in the summer, but not as much as further north, so hopefully the ceiling fans will suffice, and for the really hot days we do have air conditioning. We are not far from Grafton, 29.8 kms and it takes about 24 minutes, through lovely green countryside, lots of it sugar cane. We can do a lot of our shopping there, and it has the Bunnings store. The other place we visit regularly is Maclean, 17 kms away, but takes longer to get there are we need to cross the river on the ferry, so the trip can be between 30 and 40 minutes. Karin’ s brother and his wife live in Maclean, having just relocated from Victoria. We were sorry not to be able to say farewell to all our friends in the MG club and especially the MGA / Magnette register group. We really felt welcomed in the club from the beginning and enjoyed the outings that we were able to attend. We don’ t think that there is a comparable club around here, but it is early days yet. The car club in Grafton runs hill climbs and it seems that a lot of activities centre on competition.