If you’re considering us as your house sitters, then you’ll probably want to get to know us. Therefore, I thought I’d write a little about what John and I have been doing throughout our adult lives. Don’t worry, I won’t go into too much detail, just a little so you know our backgrounds.
We have 2 adult daughters both living in South Aus and both have children of their own. So, we have 4 grandchildren, ranging in age from nearly 3 to 15 years. Both of us have lived in Adelaide (longer than anywhere else), Melbourne and the Gold Coast (for 19 years until January 2023 ). John has also lived in Sydney for a couple of years.
So what did I (Julieanne) do, during my working life?
As soon as I was old enough I left Port Pirie where I grew up to train as an RN at Calvary Hospital in North Adelaide. Then, in my mid 20s, I decided to take a different path and went to University to study Accountancy. That was about the same time PCs (personal computers) were becoming popular (in the mid 80s) and I literally fell in love with them. I know that sounds weird, but I was fascinated, so much that I’d wake up at 5 am so I could travel into the city early to use the computers at the Uni before starting work. In those days, only the typists in the office had a “kind of” PC.
Because I was studying Accounting, I got a job in the Public Service and by 1991 had moved to the Information Technology (IT) department. I stayed there for about 9 years until they decided to outsource the IT work. By then, I’d discovered I liked teaching and did some lecturing and tutoring in Computer science subjects. Around 2003, John and I started a business on the Internet, and since then, I’ve been mostly self employed doing different types of work online.
Now, what’s John been upto all his life?
He was born in Rotterdam and at 6 years of age, came out to Australia on a huge ship with his parents (of course) and 2 sisters. They lived in Barmera and Loxton for a few years, and then moved to Adelaide.
From what I can make out, John’s biggest passion has always been singing and song writing, but he’s wandered away from singing quite a few times to play a number of other musical instruments. He’s also been in a number of different bands, in Adelaide, Melbourne and the Gold Coast. He started off playing drums when he was really young, then when I met him in the mid 80s he was learning piano with a plan to sing Billy Joel songs while playing.
When our youngest daughter was almost 4, we took her to learn the violin and John fell in love with classical music. He decided to be a classical guitar teacher and learnt classical guitar so he could start teaching from home. Once he got started, he built up his number of students to almost 50 and was becoming a popular teacher using the Suzuki method.
Once we moved up to the Gold Coast in 2004, we noticed how popular tribute bands were in QLD so John started a Rolling Stones tribute band, with him playing the part of Mick Jagger. The band did a lot of gigs over 15 years and got some pretty big crowds singing along to their favourite songs.
Just like many musicians, John also had other jobs and most of his jobs were in horticulture, either as a green keeper on a golf course or working with plants in a nursery. And, we owned our home for over 20 years in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, where John landscaped and planted at least 3 different types of gardens, all of them beautiful.
Even when we were renting a property on the Gold Coast, John had LOTS of pot plants and the garden always looked flowerful and attractive.
