Books and More: With Jan Deane.
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Megan Fisher
About 18 months ago I downsized from a house with four bedrooms and a granny flat to a two-bedroom apartment.
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To say it’s been a challenge is an understatement, but that’s a story for another day.
Recently I went looking through a hallway cupboard for something and I came across a book I had bought and read several years ago.
The next thing I knew I was ensconced in a comfy chair and halfway through the 300-page memoir.
Down The Dirt Roads by Rachael Treasure is the author’s life story — and it’s a great yarn.
Rachael finds herself homeless with three children, after her marriage goes bust, destroying her lifelong dream of taking over her family’s farm in rural Tasmania.
Worse still, her soon to be ex-husband decides to stay on and continue helping to run her family’s farm, with the backing of her father and brother.
This forces Rachael to move into town and on to a small farm plot, so her children can continue going to school.
I bought this book when I was going through big changes in my life and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it has popped up again in the face of more upheaval.
Down The Dirt Roads documents how difficult it can be for a woman, especially with children, to forge a new path in life.
Rachael explains how her rural upbringing helped but also hindered her, as she grappled with the unfairness of her situation.
In a particularly blunt assessment, she says she realised she had to embrace change, stop feeling sorry for herself and stop talking herself down.
While she pushes herself to do this, Rachael explains how she believes the farming industry she grew up in has lost its way and must return to a focus on local products and markets if it is to survive satisfactorily.
We’ve all been there, when the life and job you’ve established and worked hard to maintain changes overnight and you have no option but to see where it takes you next.
I love it when something so simple as re-reading a book can shed valuable light on life’s challenges.
I was meant to rediscover Down The Dirt Roads.
• Down The Dirt Roads by Rachael Treasure.
Published by Penguin Random House.
Down The Dirt Roads is available at the Goulburn Valley Libraries in paperback and eAudiobook.
Home truths: Down The Dirt Roads by Rachael Treasure: Published by Penguin Random House.
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