"Holtieshouses"

Natte Yallock Road Maryborough

This period was covered fairly completely under “Self Sufficiency” during September, so I will include only a thumbnail sketch here.

Once the trip was finished we took a job with Pacific School Photography and began searching for a small property.

We came across the Maryborough one that consisted of 200 acres of pretty rough land, a dilapidated house and some rough sheds, but for some reason we both liked it!

We were to continue taking school photos for 11 years, the last 3 operating on a profitable franchise basis we had made with Pacific.

Eventually we quit taking photos, sold our land to a neighbor, after annexing off the house block, we made an annual pilgrimage to Queensland, and a few visits to WA during the cold Victorian winter.

This seemed the ideal life, and short of a desire to find somewhere to live with a kinder climate the whole picture looked perfect.

So it came as quite a shock, some 12 years after we bought this property, when we returned from one of our winters in Queensland to be informed that it seemed like a good idea if we split up and went our separate ways.

Now in all fairness that’s an over-simplification, but there really wasn’t a problem that warranted the destruction of a 24 year marriage.

Having said that, I plead guilty to agreeing to dismantle the marriage too, instead of fighting to salvage it as my instincts were telling me to.