As you would expect, Kim and I had many conversations about the diagnosis. We had moved into our beautiful home just under two years ago, after I returned to Australia. I had returned to the UK to sell my home, gain a visa, and return asap to Australia. But I left on the last day before the Australian border was closed and the UK locked down due to Covid 19.

I was gone for 15 months and eventually returned in early September 2021. After I sold my UK property, Kim and I started looking at possible locations for a new home. We found our present home in Bawley Point, a 10-acre property, ideal for development into an equine dream for Kim and her horses.. Kim had been happiest in her life when, as teenager, she spent a lot of time with horses.

During the 6-month period immediately before I returned to the UK, Kim was ‘persuaded” by me, to buy a horse. It was dream come true for her and the horse was agisted near her home in Terrey Hills.

We found 40 Willinga Road, Bawley Point, via an internet search. Kim came to see it with her eldest daughter, Hayley’s, partner John. They both loved the house and the land, which would be ideal for horses. Unfortunately, it was a 4 hour drive from Kim’s two daughters and the grandchildren. After a lengthy debate we put an offer in, ahead of the upcoming auction, and it was accepted. Contracts were exchanged within days, but we had time to move as the vendors wanted to be able to shift their considerable possessions to a new home. This suited us as I was no nearer to returning to Australia at that point. So, with contracts exchanged in May 2021 we had until around October to get me back to Australia and prepare ourselves for the move.

I returned to Australia on 3 September 2021. I went straight to a hotel for quarantine of two weeks, leaving on 15th September. We moved to Bawley Point over two days, 2/3 October. My journey from the UK had been very traumatic – my flight was cancelled on the scheduled day of departure, and I had to check into a hotel at Heathrow pending another flight 5 days later. I will not go into any more detail, but you can imagine the fight I had with the airline when I discovered that the flight was not cancelled, I had been bumped off the flight as their quota of quarantine places had been exceeded.

Anyway, I got to Australia, in the end!!

Once we got to Bawley Point we started to plan our projects. Over the past two years we have: installed four stables on the rear of the large shed (the roof already existed as part of the shed and was previously used to store a caravan and boat), added a 10Kwh solar system on the roof of the annex building, added a solar battery, re-laid the driveway and slightly extended it to the big shed, added a 50m x 20m horse arena, added a 16m diameter horse round yard, added a 105,000ltr concrete water tank, (giving a total capacity of 210,000litres), moved the outflow from the septic sewage system, with full approval from Shoalhaven Council, renewed all the fencing that was damaged in the bush fires, added a shipping container to store horse feed and bedding materials, completely redecorated the annex and updated the bathroom, added a full air conditioning system in the main house to provide both warm and cold air, which is zoned throughout, insulated the loft area of the main house, renewed all the smoke alarms in both the main house and annex, replaced the worktops in the main house kitchen with stone, added ceiling fans in two of the spare bedrooms in the main house, added Starlink Internet capability, added a six camera security system, added alarms to both the big Shed and the annex garage, added electric door openers to the 5 garage doors, and added a small tack room within the big shed.

We were at the planning stage for a pool and extended covered patio area for entertaining.

It was at this point I discovered I had cancer.

After lengthy debate, Kim and I decided we could not sustain the lifestyle we had. for the following reasons, we decided to move:

1. Looking after a 10-acre property, at my age, with three horses and two dogs was already enough of a challenge. I had surrounded us with as much equipment to help but, nevertheless it was not going to be possible with bone cancer.
2. Kim, as you would no doubt expect, if you knew her, was determined to support me through cancer. It’s the nature of the beautiful person she is. But I felt she also needed support for her. Being this far from her “girls” is bad enough, but while she is looking after me, she too needs them around her. We both knew what this would mean for Kim’s beautiful horses, her dreams. Kim decided, to enable her to focus on my healing, the horses should be re-homed. More of this trauma a little later. Suffice to say this decision was so, so hard for Kim. She idolises the horses and gets so much pleasure out of just being with them every day.
3. Where we are is not far from local shops and, despite being 5 mins drive to the beach, we are quite isolated, and I felt that I wanted Kim to be closer to “civilisation” in case anything happened to me. You never know.

So, we engaged an agent to sell 40 Willinga Road and it went on the market on 27 September.

Her is a link to the promotional video to support the marketing materials:

https://jojones.agentboxcrm.com.au/contact-067f3ed9e694c9097507e0bf0ec5a5a2-2P0178

The other tough decision I had to make was purely personal on my behalf. About 8 months ago I treated myself to a beautiful Harley Davidson Heritage Softail from 2006. Gary Wallington has a pal. Laurie, who owned the bike. He has a few health challenges and had lost his confidence to ride the machine. I had spoken to Gary about getting a bike on several occasions as he, and a few other guys in the area, have one. I saw the bike and fell in love with it. It’s the perfect colour, has only covered 14,00kms and was in perfect condition. I didn’t hesitate!

Motorcycles and bone cancer do not make happy bed mates – it had to go! I advertised it and quickly got interest. The first guy had to travel 4 hours from Sydney to see it, he was that keen. He asked me if the price was negotiable. I said no as I knew two other people had also seen it and wanted to come and check it out. One of those two guys was from Queensland, and he wanted to fly down to see it. The first guy duly turned up with his mate, a fellow Harley rider. After a quick test drive, he paid the asking price happily. He also bought my two crash helmets, my riding trousers, a pair of brand-new boots that were still in the box, unused, plus some other bits like gloves and jackets. Whilst I was sorry to see the bike go, it had to, and the bonus is that I got back all my outlay on it and my gear! Result! Here is a picture: