Simone took up a position in the Northern Rivers in 1995 so we shifted down to northern NSW and soon bought 50 Abbey Road Jiggi. Forty acres with the ‘cottage” cost $60k.
The owner had been in an accident and built with compo money but couldn’t finish or maintain it. Police raided the place years before and knocked the doors off their hinges, so the house was nailed shut and the window around the front was used for coming and going. He’d also turned a little feral and answered the window in the nip bless him, the first time I visited.
Rundown without gutters, decks, water, sanitation, power, vehicle access or phone it was structurally sound, and with a panoramic view of a valley that stretched all the way to Lismore, 20 klms away to the south.
Reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had lead me to think i was a renaissance man with broad interests and capable of many things. So I convinced Simone (and myself) I could do the renovation single handedly. I had the time as I was in the middle of my “ the world is overflowing with photographs and doesn’t need any more” stage having just read Walden, so didn’t give photography the time of day. Plus I was in a minimal phase too after reading Walden and thought nothing should be more than it had to be. So Abbey Road became an expression of what I thought at the time was form, function and minimalism.
It's not not missed because we're in another good place, I still like it though.
Jiggi 1996-2002
(Sunday, 09 January 2011)