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A scene near the farm.
"Fare thee well for I must leave thee
Do not let this parting grieve thee
Just remember that the best of friends must part."
There was so much hurry, so much bustle, he had sought throughout his life the safe place, the safe haven, where everything would be right and he would be right with the world. Sometimes he had travelled thousands fo miles in search of that elusive spot, travelling down the south coast of Morocco from one forlorn beach to the next, looking, looking. Could it be here? Could he be happy here? Could he write here? But the haven was always elusive, just around the corner, another place, another time. He first felt it strongly on the Greek Island of Ios, all those years ago, in the days before it became a popular tourist destination. He went back once, years later, to discover that his little bit of paradise had been overtaken by time, tourists, money, development.
But back then, in the very early seventies, when Rod Stewart's Maggie May wound in picturesque cobbled streets, when many of the world's most beautiful places were known only to intrepid travellers and hippies, before the era of mass travel and before the clatter of modern development, it was a perfect place. He rarely arrived anywhere without staying for a month; and so it was with Ios. There are more than 20 nightclubs there now, but back then there was only one. He wore peace signs on his shoes, a pair of green boots he had been enormously proud of, not realising that the peace sign and the communist sign were identical. And in those days you didn't want to be a communist in Greece.
Papandreau had been elected and he had watched the balloons falling from the top of skyscrapers in Athens, one of those heightened moments he thought he would never forget, but of course he did. As a child barely 12, the first time he flew down the San Andreas fault, watching the sun set over the mountains at 30,000 feet; this is so beautiful, in all of life's experiences, I will never forget, but of course he did. And now, in the early seventies in Ios in Greece, for a moment he had found his spiritual home. They gathered in the square for breakfast each morning, eating yogurt and honey, drinking coffee, swapping notes about the night before, talking about anything and everything.
For we were all from everywhere, shared only English and the feeling that we were on the edge of our own lives, on the edge of great adventures. A wealthy American couple, or so they seemed to me, had rented a huge apartment overlooking the port. They were my age, but clearly had access to more liquid assets. And it all seemed so fabulous, the American couple, the tiny cobbled streets, the whitewashed walls, the bent over women in black, the wonderful smell of the bakery each morning; the fishermen coming into the port each morning. Sometimes he would go down and join them, downing little shot glasses of brandy as the dawn turned to morn an the fishing boats bobbed on the sucking water. This was the place, this was the time, he kept falling in love every five minutes.
And one of those was the mysterious woman who had decided to stay for the entire summer, and had rented a simple house in the valley around from the village. I was too poor to afford even that, but she had taken the house with a grand gesture, and I wanted to sleep with her, I thought. There was no electricity. The trees closed in around them, the narrow paths up from the beach, other houses for rent. How had she done it, how could she afford it? But it seemed, suddenly, the perfect place; tucked away from the dramatic views that greeted one at every twist of the rocky cliff side path; up behind the first wave of houses, obscure, remote, simple, where the modern world had no place.
That's where he wanted to be; an obscure, simple place where no one could find him, where the head was at rest, where the landscape was inspirational. But above all it was the isolation, the security, the peacefulness that he sought, not just here but everywhere in life. He wanted relief, release, from the voices that clamoured in his head, from the awful stresses of failure that modern life imposed, from the contests he could never win. A damaged spirit seeking refuge. That was true, it really was. What he sought above all else was a place where no one could get to him, where the most diligent of abusers could not find him, where the non-stop harassment of modern life would cease; and he would find peace. At last.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=ahaZ4aVrlAcA&refer=australia
March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Craig-y-Mor, a Sydney home with views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, has been sold for A$32.4 million ($31 million), a record for an Australian residence.
The five-bedroom property was sold by businessman Ben Tilley who bought it from stockbroker Rene Rivkin in 2004 for more than A$16 million, L.J. Hooker, the agent for the sale, said in an e- mailed statement today.
Craig-y-Mor, which isn't on the waterfront, is located in the eastern suburb of Point Piper on Wolsely Road, the same street which saw home sales for A$25 million and A$18.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2007.
``Properties like this don't come onto the market very often,'' L.J. Hooker agent Rick Nolasco said in the statement. ``There is such a limited supply of properties like Craig-y-Mor that when they do come onto the market they sell for sums like we've just seen,
The previous Australian record, a property called 'Tahiti' in the neighboring suburb of Vaucluse, was bought by South Africa's Krok family in September 2007 for A$29 million.
Luxury properties in the city are showing ``no signs of strain'' following a rise in interest rates to their highest in 12 years, L.J. Hooker said.
``The top end of Sydney's property market is incredibly strong,'' Nolasco said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/now-sydneys-affluent-hit/2008/03/13/1205126077118.html
The first signs of mortgage stress caused by higher interest rates and the fall in the stock market are beginning to be seen in the more affluent suburbs of Sydney.
Homeowners in suburbs such as Bondi, Chatswood and on the northern beaches are feeling the pinch as their net worth contracts because of the need to meet margin loans that were taken out to borrow money to buy shares, the authors of the J.P. Morgan/Fujitsu Australian Mortgage Industry Report say.
The impact of the need to pay back the loans has combined with the pressure of higher mortgage payments and rising school fees to increase the sense of stress being felt by the better off.
Those households are starting to fall into the category of those suffering from "mild" mortgage stress, people who are keeping their financial heads above water but who are having to rejig their domestic budgets to keep up with their rising monthly home loan repayments.
A scene near the farm.
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