Blog No. 347 - Pushing Through the Pain: Part 1 - 1 January 2026
My then wife forced me to sell our house in Kensington Park so we could move from being 45 minutes away from the city to the quiet and hilly area of Basket Range. In between winding roads and foggy vineyards we found a new house on Burdetts Road. I remember it as being run down, and once again I would need to make renovations. Below you will find some photos taken in 2025 from the outside of the house.
This is the front of the house, you can see soem of the front porch, with a small walkway to the house on the left. The house is wrapped in thick foliage providing some needed privacy.
The house had a small fountain with a cherub statue in the middle. The front garden needed some care but the thickness of it gave it a certain aesthetic.
Another angle of the house. The house is currently inhabited by people, please respect their privacy.
****
1980s
I restarted my legal career in 1983.
That year I worked full time and studied nearly full time.
In 1984, I studied full time and worked several part time jobs.
Although I qualified for the Degree of Bachelor of Law with Honours.
I attended the graduation ceremony on my own.
The mother of my children refused to come.
I pretended it did not matter.
I deluded myself with the usual lies.
The exhaustion did not matter either.
I only needed to survive a few more years.
****
The house at Morgan Avenue Daw Park that I bought in 1981 and personally completely renovated. The part of the veranda on the right as you look at the photo, had been enclosed and converted into a bedroom when I bought the house in 1981. Amongst many other things, I removed the dilapidated structure from the veranda and returned the veranda to being a beautiful addition to the house. The Baltic pine floors in the two rooms visible in this photo and the Baltic pine floor in the passageway immediately behind the front door, had all been coated in easy wax. I removed the easy wax and sanded the floors so they looked superb again.
****
As at 1 January 2026 the website https://www.onthehouse.com.au/property/sa/daw-park-5041 says that the last sale of the Morgan Avenue house was on 12 December 2016 and the sale price was $787,500. I purchased Morgan Avenue for $26,000 in 1981. I sold it in 1985 for $83,000.
The same website says this about the Adelaide suburb of Daw Park.
****
My wife insisted on selling our home soon after my daughter was born.
The house had to be sold before I found a new home.
Late on the designated last day,
I wearily helped move our furniture out of the home I had created.
The removalists had messed everything up.
They arrived very late,
And only after I rang asking when they were coming.
I packed much of the furniture into my own car.
The final furniture removal trip was so hard.
It was dark and raining heavily.
A giant spider raced across the windscreen,
Directly in front of my head.
I tried to concentrate on the driving.
It would have been so easy to panic,
So easy to kill myself and the children in a crash.
I got us there safely.
****
I had managed to buy another house,
It was another wreck in need of renewal,
But we could not move in for another 4 weeks.
I found temporary accommodation.
It was expensive holiday accommodation.
The Broadway at Glenelg is a prized location for holidaymakers.
It is expensive,
But not very impressive.
Glenelg Holiday Apartments still exist and can be found at 44 The Broadway, Glenelg.
****
So as always, I endured.
And as always, I kept making the impossible an everyday event.
But to do this,
I had to lie to myself continuously.
How else could I have survived?
My biggest lie was the one that kept me alive.
That one was a total whopper.
I convinced myself I would still be alive when my daughter turned 18.
I convinced myself the pain would all be worthwhile,
Because I would see my daughter turn 18.
While despair steadily disintegrated my insides.
I pretended the despair had no meaning.
I thought I could let go after my daughter turned 18.
I would let everything go when my daughter turned 18.
I was horribly wrong of course,
But exhaustion leads to this crazy thinking.
Although my deluded brain thought I could survive indefinitely.
Eventually, my body insisted otherwise.
****
The house before I moved to the one at Basket Range was a beautiful one in Kensington Park. There was nothing wrong with the house, but it seemed like my then wife wanted to live farther from the city. It hurt greatly, both emotionally and financially to move out from this house.
I sold it in 1991 for $171,000. Recent estimates according to Realestate.com, the house is now worth between $2.1-$2.5 million.
When I had first bought the house, it lacked the red brick and iron fence on the front.
The road where the house is situated. Kensington Park is right now a very affluent suburb beside Burnside, another incredibly affluent suburb.
Australia always has an absurd number of ways in which to extract money from you.
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