Bill Shock in Semi-Bushland
Home in Semi-Bushland
Severe fire warnings triggering all kinds of memories ~ The price of serenity
I cried earlier today. Head in hands at my desk. Bill shock. I’m being charged $6,763 for house insurance. The penalty of serene living in a timber house in a village deemed semi bushland. Ouch. In actual fact the premium has ‘only’ gone up $663. Last year it went up by $1,100. Could be worse.
I totally get that I choose to live in the beautiful Hurstbridge Region. I used to live in St Andrews on acreage in bushland and was lucky enough to be spared on Black Saturday, but not unaffected between the ears.
My upset increased at a flashback from some 16 years ago in my beautiful studio space in St Andrews, sitting at my desk opening the mail — the paper kind in envelopes. I read the contents of one and gulps of sobs escaped before I could quieten them down. I was staring at the letter from the bank shaking in my hand telling me that I was a guarantor of machinery in my terminally ill husband’s factory for $35,000. That was the first I knew about it. He cried out to me furtively from his bed, “What’s wrong?” He was connected to oxygen and across the hallway, and could see me through the open doors. He got anxious if I was out of sight.
To this day, I regret not telling him. I soothed him down, trying to ease his worry. Two days later we left the house in an ambulance on my birthday and he never came back. He was an arrogant bugger, the lovable rogue type of guy and he enjoyed forging witness signatures and calling himself a doctor and more. No need for a Justice of the Peace with him. He’d forged my signature on some loan document I didn’t know about. I’d started sobbing because it was another lethal blow to losing my home, my son’s and mine, and I knew we would have to sell after my husband’s death. I was wondering what in the hell else was coming that I didn’t know about. He left us in a stinking mess. That’s a whole other story.
Today’s email was a trigger to that.
Just a moment of dealing with real figures. My creative brain doesn’t like them very much. I live in glass-half-full land but visit the half-empty territory occasionally and looking down the barrel for the rest of my life affording such things is a bit scary if I go there.
I have nothing major to whinge about. Dollars and cents are juggled, albeit messily and ditto for most of the population. Survival thoughts pop up. I have friends in their mid-seventies still working as they cannot afford to stop and my parents in law have exhausted the bulk of their retirement funds and had in fact left their house and car uninsured. As a (former) daughter in law I contacted their other sons and got that sorted.
With this heat wave in Melbourne here’s hoping no insurance needs to be claimed anywhere. I can write this without my heart pounding dangerously as the 41 degrees Celsius weather is outside the ‘city’ house of my wonderful partner where I can escape the fear and anxiety of fire weather. I’m firmly in the leave early camp. I’m very lucky on so many counts. Thank you to each and every volunteer fire fighter and support teams. I appreciate you all so very much.
Stay safe and cool.
Suzy
