I’ve just been informed – by my hairdresser, no less – that my parents are looking to move to Tasmania. Thanks for letting me in on that little piece of info, mum and dad! I mean, sure, they’d expressed an interest in going there, but I thought they were talking about a holiday, not a permanent relocation.
According to Cheryl (who, incidentally, is also mum’s hairdresser – another fact I wasn’t aware of until now), they’ve been looking for houses to buy in a suburb of greater Hobart called Brighton. Car service centres and auto parts stores are plentiful there, it seems, relative to the scale of the place. That’s important, given my parents obsession with buying old trucks, converting them into tiny houses and selling them to their pals.
They don’t make a huge amount of money out of it, which I think is due to their reliance on professional mechanics to support their amateur approach, but it seems to make them extremely happy, so who am I to argue with it? Point is, if they are going to move to this Brighton, tyre and auto services are going to be a necessity, as is the ability to call in a mobile mechanic – ideally, a diesel specialist – in a pinch.
The more I think about it, the more this whole ‘moving to Tasmania’ thing actually adds up. They’re currently living in an inner city apartment in Melbourne, and have the schlep out to their friends’ farm in order to work on their beloved projects. Now that they’re retired, they might as well have their own bit of property to do their thing on, and it’s cheaper to buy big pieces of land like that down in Tassie.
I just don’t get why mum told our hairdresser before telling me! What did they think I’d do – dismiss their idea? It’s like, I guess that’s possible… in fact, now that I think about it, it’s probable. I can see how, by having me find out this way, I kind of have to accept it.