Angela Williams - High Street to Homestead

1. CHAPTER ONE:
   Night sweats
2. CHAPTER TWO:
   Reel back the years
3. CHAPTER THREE:
   Nothing new under the Te Parae sun
4. CHAPTER FOUR:
   Thoroughbred stud once more?
5. CHAPTER FIVE:
   Horses, my passion
6. CHAPTER SIX:
   Let us entertain you
7. CHAPTER SEVEN:
   Wedding days
8. CHAPTER EIGHT:
   Selling handbags
9. CHAPTER NINE:
   Home to stay
10. CHAPTER TEN:
    My big OE
11. CHAPTER ELEVEN:
    Scotland
12. CHAPTER TWELVE:
    Down South
13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
    Mark
14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
    Melbourne
15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
    Where to start?
16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
    Miss New Zealand and Biggles
17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
    Organised chaos
18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
    My Te Parae
19. CHAPTER NINETEEN:
    The next generation

Its the middle of the night and Im lying awake asking myself not for the first time why I gave up a glamorous job in the city to return to the country and start a business. What possessed me to leave behind a world where I was immersed in luxury designer labels, high fashion and cocktail parties for a challenge that would require me to draw on not only my financial resources and my entire lifes experience, but those of my husband and family too?

Just when our lives were swinging along so effortlessly. What was I thinking?

From our double bed, I stare through the bifold windows that overlook the huge lake in front of this old family homestead. The moon is reflecting on the water, as its done for more than 100 years since my great-grandfather and great-grandmother built the house and landscaped the gardens.

I do love this rural lifestyle, but how come, if Im so tired when I go to bed, I end up wide awake well before dawn? That doesnt seem right. Theres always so much to be done here on the farm each day that, come bedtime, I fall between the sheets exhausted. But despite my body being all tuckered out, my brain has other ideas and sometimes, just after midnight, a little voice inside my head will say its time to wake up.

Im not always like this: a worry wart. Im not neurotic. I usually climb into bed and sleep like a baby, waking up ready to tackle the next day head on.

I listen to the night noises for a while. Whoever says the city never sleeps hasnt stayed up all night in the country. At first it seems deathly quiet, but then from a neighbouring farm away in the distance comes the sound of a frustrated bull that wont stop bellowing. Much closer outside our kitchen door in fact a couple of possums are hissing at each other in the top of the Wellingtonia tree. One of our Labradors, Mukwa, is barking like a crazy mutt from her kennel below. She wants someone to go out with a gun and shoot the damn pests and shes right, someone should, or those possums will be climbing down the tree and eating the new shoots off the roses. But her barking just makes the possums hiss even more, rarking her up, and on it goes; fat possums versus black dog.

In the willows across the other side of the lake I can hear a morepork hooting. At least the wild cat Ive seen lurking around the stables, probably trying to catch a few mice, wont get its mangy claws into the moreporks chicks, but I make a mental note to trap the cat anyway. No feral cats are permitted to survive around here; they devastate the native bird population. We love to keep all the trees around the place filled with birdsong as a backdrop to our day.

Simon Irving, my husband, sleeps on beside me, oblivious to my restlessness and the entertainment carrying on outside. Its almost a full moon, which doesnt help it illuminates the night so the animals are on high alert. Like a spotlight, its shining into our bedroom, throwing shadows on the walls and the ceiling, and adding to my worries: will we get by for another 10 years without having to repaint this room?

I cast my mind back to earlier in the evening, before we came to bed. After a day of visitors, phone calls, rushing around feeling like a rat on a treadmill, we slumped down to a cosy dinner at the big wooden table in the kitchen that easily seats 14 people, and was originally used in the farm woolshed for the wool fleeces. Wed been going over the finances, working out how to trim the budget here so more could be spent there; this big old house, Te Parae, might be gorgeous but it sure takes a huge amount of money to keep afloat. The dogs Mukwa, Boo the rescue Labrador, Harry the retired racing greyhound and Hine-Waka the border collie had all flopped onto the floor in front of the log burner, jostling for prime position. They were pretending to sleep as they always do in the evening so that they wont get shooed outside but if one of us raises our voice you can bet a dog will look up, anxious in case they are in trouble and about to be banished.

Well get there, we always tell ourselves. Things could be worse. As I lie here trying to stop my overactive mind from veering off into negative thoughts, I remind myself were well on the way now to firmly establishing ourselves as a destination for special events. I dont have to push as hard as I did when we first came back here five years ago to convince Aucklanders and other city folk that Te Parae has something special to offer for their wedding, corporate getaway or party weekender. Ive got several events booked and confirmed for the next season: numerous weddings, some garden tours, retirement village visits and lunches, historic tours, and several other big affairs that will bring in a steady income.

And I mustnt forget about the horses that is, the thoroughbred yearlings Im breeding. Theyre coming on okay for the sales in the New Year, when they should bring in a reasonable income several thousand dollars at least. Come on, Angela, I tell myself. Remember it was the money from some of your yearlings in the first place that enabled you and Simon to leave the big smoke of Auckland and buy Te Parae from Mum and Dad when they decided to retire and move out.

I feel a bit better for a while, and even start feeling a bit drowsy, but that doesnt last. Did I imagine it, or was that a minor tremor? Jolly earthquakes. They dont frighten me, but the last big one we had here, in 2014, rocked the old house on its foundations; it also left a roadmap of cracks over some of the interior walls where Mum had done extensive renovations back in 1974 when Princess Anne and her then husband Mark Phillips paid an official royal visit to Te Parae, at that time one of New Zealands leading thoroughbred studs.