North Melbourne

As promised, here are photos of the townhouse, I (with the bank) are now a home owner of.

North Melbourne Townhouse

No surprise, I am a HUGE fan of North Melbourne and my townhouse. Some little facts:

• 187 Abbotsford Street, is in fact the storage shed of one of Melbourne's last tramhouses (the façade at the entrance is the only remaining part of the structure). Tramhouses provided the power for Melbourne's cable tram system at the turn of the 20th century.

• The median price of a house in North Melbourne is 545000; the population is just over 9000 people, 42% are aged between 18-35

• Only 10% of people living in North Melbourne are owner-occupiers (so a very transient population), 40% are professionals, and the top 10% of income earners are above the national average

• And as an aside, it also has an above average crime rate - 337 incidents per 1000 people, so I guess I have a 1-in-3 chance of being robbed!

It is an interesting little suburb, somewhere between the grunge popularity of Richmond and the industrial inner-city, but expensive South Melbourne. And Errol Street, North Melbourne is fantastic - it appears every week a new cafe is opening - to cater for the inner city urbanite. Anyway, I have only lived here now for 5 months, so I will report back once I have been here for a little longer.

Kate moved in!

Yes, a BIG day - but my better half? today moved into my little townhouse - hopefully a whole new adventure awaits!

I am a home owner!

Well life has a way of sometimes becoming v.busy and once again after an Internet hiatus I am online again at home - what this time?

Well, I finally have taken the plunge and bought into the Australian dream buying a little townhouse in North Melbourne, Melbourne (photos to follow)!

I'm back!

Yes, after a 4-week hiatus which included a 2-week race around Europe, where I visited 6 cities (and my credit card got slammed). So how did the 'race' unfold - well after Prague, Czech Republic, I headed south-east to Bratislavia, Slovakia and then south again to Hungary, Budapest. Once there, headed to Vienna, Austria and then east to Amsterdam, Holland, and north to Copenhagen, Denmark! And at last, back to Zurich, Switzerland.

A great 2 week experience.

You can do it :)

I have a developing cold (i.e. sore throat) at the moment and it is a miserable rainy afternoon in Melbourne today, so I am staying in, keeping warm, and obviously writing too many posts! I just thought I would say that I have become interested in personal development/motivation over the last couple of months (probably because I have been assessing/re-assessing what the hell I am doing at the moment). I think I have been lacking some direction/goals, recently. This has significantly changed in the last 6 months (and definately will do so in the near-future!), here are some of the sources I have found for personal development/motivation:

(1) Family/Friends/Partners; the best advice anyone could tap into (indeed, I was recently termed a 'sounding board' by one of my friends); these people are your mentors, peers, and influences. Don't keep your ideas, hopes to yourself - share them with your friends so others can share in your experiences, adventures (e.g. a good friend just completed the 100km walk - this was a great achievement, but even more so because she had shared her prpearations, fears, and expectations with all her friends).

(2) Environment; I try and surround myself by people, activities, stories that are empowering; there are a lot of people which you can be inspired from. Books like 'Its Not About the Bike' - L.Armstrong (the cyclist) for the rewards of unbelieveable discipline, and No Opportunity Wasted - P.Keogh (the Amazing Race guy) for the rewards of travel , and lists (I now have a life list)! I like plans - I am a planner - plans bias one to look forward, lead to hope, goals, motivation, drive, and *potentially* acheivement. And if that ain't enough watch 'Touching the Void' - simply awe-inspiring.

(3) Personal; have goals, tell others, toss them about, and then go for it. 1 year ago I had significant knee surgery (all I could think at the time was that I wanted to attend my first boot camp as soon as I could walk again). I did it, and have now attended 3 boot camps in the last year. Sure my knee hurts, indeed there is not a day when I don't notice the reduced flexibility, the stiffness, etc. however, whenever I want to go faster all I think of is - there was a time that I thought I would never run again - so take this time that you have now and push through!

And now as a result of writing this blog - I am going to create my life list (what a bloody good idea) - if you are interested you can look here (remember it is a work in progress and I was getting hungry and needed some lunch).