GET INTO YOUR COMFORT ZONE

THE PRECURSOR to any life-changing decision is, I suppose, a feeling of dissatisfaction. I had this gnawing sense that my life wasn’t as good as it might be. I was in my forties at the time. My wife and I had a one-year-old son and we were living in the inner-west of Sydney. We were happy enough and yet a realisation was dawning on me: this wasn’t a great place to raise a kid.

In my salad days, inner-city living had suited me. I’d relished the proximity to a pulsating night life. But you get over that, don’t you? A place I’d hitherto seen as loaded with possibility now seemed noisy and polluted. I wanted something quieter and greener. I’d grown up in the suburbs