Okay, so I needed to concentrate on hubby's early retirement. We don't have much superannuation as hubby is self employed and we had withdrawn mine in the 90's when you still could. We had a mortgage with supposedly 8 years to go, and not a lot in savings. DON'T touch the SAVINGS! No way was I going to use the money for the holiday! I started to look at subdividing again. We had played around with the idea of selling off half of our 26oo sqm a few years before but decided it was all too hard. But now it suddenly looked like it could be the answer to the dilemma. If we could sell that, it would clear the mortgage and one or two small debts and hubby could either retire or go part time.

I have always thought there must be a good reason why we bought this place, with the huge back yard that we do nothing with. Now I was beginning to realise it was all a part of the bigger picture. That extra area was ideal for someone to build a house on and it wouldn't really affect the sale of the house when we eventually move into something smaller. I mean, 1300 sqm is still a very good sized block, even in a semi-rural area. Many of the blocks around us had been carved up into 1000 sqm lots, so ours was still a fair size in comparison. It took me a while to convince hubby that it was a good idea but in the end he went along with it and we hired a surveyor for the job.

Were we mad, or what? In the middle of a recession we start spending money on surveyors, tree lopping, council fees and the like. But I knew in my heart it was right. The only trouble is, these things take time. Boy, do they ever. Now it was less than a year before our holiday was meant to be happening and we had all this going on. Hubby's joint and muscle pain, the recession slowing down the income, the sale of the block, and I still needed to get on with making all the holiday bookings. I was starting to get a tad nervous. Was hubby right? had I bitten off more than I could chew???