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Some of you who have been my regular subscribers through the years might be wondering why you haven’t seen any contributions from me for around 3 years. Yes, covid has been a significant factor (fortunately neither of us has succumbed to it yet), but there has been a more significant reason. My wife, Joan, suffers from Stargardt’s Disease (or AMD – age-related macular degeneration) which means she is rapidly losing her sight and sadly there is currently no cure or even part cure for it. It is not as though it has taken her by surprise, as it is hereditary and a number of her family members had/have it also, so she knew it was coming. I guess that ‘age-related’ is the key word as it was manageable up until about 5 years ago. The first major impact was around that time when Joan had to relinquish her driving licence (and thus a fair degree of her independence). Since then, sadly, her eyesight has gone downhill quickly to the point where she hardly recognises faces any more and can only read very large print with some difficulty.
So, what changes has that brought about our lives? Well, most significantly, around
a year ago we decided to move out of our comfortable lifestyle on the very busy northern beaches of Sydney and relocate to a sleepy little town on the NSW south coast called Broulee (population less than 2,000), which is about 4 hours drive south of Sydney. Why Broulee you might say? Well, apart from the fact that it is a very pretty area and relatively isolated, we have in fact been visiting it regularly over the last 10 years as Joan’s sister and her husband live here. And her sister also has Stargardt’s, although so far to a lesser degree than Joan, so in effect the two sisters now have two drivers and potentially, down the line, two carers. Problems are much easier if you share!
The other change is that with my need to be around all the time to provide some ‘assistant eyes’, I am going to have to give up my regular solo travels to some of the out of the way spots I have traditionally visited over the last few years. While I will miss these sorties, I was starting to find some of them more difficult as I get older and the knees
get weaker, and I’m thankful I have been able to get in visits to the Stans, the Caucasus, Africa and South America before I got grounded. Joan and I will still continue to make our annual visits to the US each July/August to see our eldest son and grandkiddies (something we have really missed for the last two cycles) and we will continue our tradition of arranging a side visit for all the family on each trip, as we have done the past two years with Bermuda and Costa Rica respectively. This year we are scheduled to visit Belize with the plan for some time to be spent on beaches, coral reef snorkelling, trekking rain forests and checking out Mayan ruins, so stay tuned for a blog on these.
Before you go feeling too sorry for us, I’ve got to tell you that Broulee and its immediate environment is no hardship posting. Apart from the natural beauty of the whole coastline in this region, it is a very relaxed lifestyle and the natives here have been incredibly welcoming and friendly, so we’ve lost nothing in our social lives. Houses down here cost around a third of the equivalent property
in Sydney, so we’ve bought a very comfortable home and added a few luxuries. And I can absolutely assure you, I don’t miss driving in Sydney’s bumper-to-bumper traffic one bit. Also, as distinct from Sydney, where dogs aren’t allowed to go onto any beaches, they are welcome down here on all beaches except in the very small areas that are patrolled. But on any given day that Freshwater (our old beach) might have over a hundred board riders in the surf and that number again of bathers on the beaches, you’d be lucky to find half a dozen of each on a coastline here that spreads 5 kilometres in one direction and 2 kilometres in the other. So even the blind lady and our aging dog are able to enjoy long beach walks with the latter frisking in and out of the surf. Joan is also very active with yoga, is an avid ‘reader’ of audio books nowadays, and spends a lot of time with her sister, so there are no major hardships here and likely in some ways she has more options than she had in Sydney. I continue to play a lot of sport (I belong to four
different tennis clubs and a golf club) which keeps me active and gives me the social interaction that is important to me.
I have shown below some pics of some of the beaches within a very short drive of Broulee, and be assured, they are not doctored to look deserted - there are just no crowds on the beaches down here. For my overseas subscribers, I've also included a couple of pics of some of our wildlife down here, that frequents our native bush all the time.
So that’s our new lot in life, guys, and why you will likely only hear from us now at best once a year. Roll on Belize in August.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Thanks for the update...
Getting old is no fun. I'm sorry that Joan's macular degeneration has finally resulted in near blindness. My mother also had it, which resulted in her going to a nursing home. I'm pleased that Joan has you and her sister and husband to help each other. I look forward to your blogs about the USA visit and Belize, and that Joan is comfortable with the trip.