I am now 27 years old, and decided this might be a good time to think back on all the places I have lived. The first 27 years of my life have been spent in 24 different places of residence. But when you add to this the times I have moved back in or back out of places I have already lived, it averages out that I have so far moved house more than once a year.
…
Date moved in: 22 September 1979
Address: 80 Brondsbury Road, Kilburn, London
Comments: When I got born this is where they took me. It was the seventies, and back then we didn’t worry about a thing.
Date moved in: November 1981
Address: Young Street, Seacliff, South Australia
Comments: Immediately after returning to Australia from the U.K., our whole family lived together in one room of my Dad’s parents’ house. This was right on the beach.
Date moved in: 26 December 1982
Address: 3 Suffolk Road, Aldgate, South Australia
Comments: This was a house my parents had built on an old block in the Adelaide Hills. It is the house I have lived in for longest.
Date moved in: October 1994
Address: Moreton Avenue, Stretford, Manchester
Comments: Lived here for about a year, at first just with my Dad, but later with the rest of the family joining us.
Date moved in: November 1995
Address: Galway Grove, Tranmere, Adelaide
Comments: For reasons that now escape me, I came back to Australia a little before the rest of my family. In the time before they arrived, I lived in this massive house (mansion?) in the suburbs. My grandmother lived there too, and my aunty… some of my cousins may have been around but I am not sure.
Date moved in: January 1996
Address: 3 Suffolk Road, Aldgate, South Australia
Comments: Back with the family again.
Date moved in: September 1997
Address: ‘Peregrine’, 70 Mount Barker Road, Stirling, South Australia
Comments: The whole family moved house - only a couple of kilometres up the road though, to a places closer to the central transport and shopping hub of the Adelaide Hills.
Date moved in: February 1999
Address: Winchester Street (near the corner of Ninth Avenue), St Peters, Adelaide
Comments: I was 19 when I first moved out of home, taking over this small semi-detached that an older friend has been renting for years. It cost $90 a week to rent the place. I lived alone, and worked weekends in a nightclub to pay the bills - though my parents also helped out a bit.
Date moved in: July 1999
Address: ‘Peregrine’, 70 Mount Barker Road, Stirling, South Australia
Comments: So my first move-out didn’t last very long. I moved back home with the family because I wanted to save up money for travel…
Date moved in: January 2000
Address: St Thomas’ Road, Finsbury Park, London
Comments: After three years of university, I had decided that I needed to explore the world. Or maybe I just wanted to get away from myself or who I had become. I made my way to London Towne, having decided that I would work in publishing or some other such exciting life. Instead I ended up living in this shitty rat-hole full of drunken Australians, and working in a dull cocktail bar.
Date moved in: March 2000
Address: Workers’ accomodation, behind the Regency Hotel, Queensgate, South Kensington, London
Comments: It was cheaper and easier to start living in the large shared house behind the hotel where I worked. I had a little more time on my hands, now that I didn’t have to catch a bus for an hour and half each way across town. I also got to know some of the others working at the hotel a little better.
Date moved in: June 2000
Address: Hostal Jemasaca, Calle de Palma, Madrid
Comments: After fleeing London, and wandering right across the north of Spain, I hitched my way down to Madrid, and by some luck found myself living in a room in this hostal, and earning some money working as a waiter in a cafe. It was quite a good place to live, and I have since gone back to Hostal Jemasaca twice on subsequent visits to Madrid.
Date moved in: August 2000
Address: ‘Peregrine’, 70 Mount Barker Road, Stirling, South Australia
Comments: Back to Australia, living with my parents again while finishing my degree. In October/November I attempted to move back to Madrid, where I had been offered a full-time job. For obscure reasons this plan turned completely abortive and I was back home again after a month.
Date moved in: February 2001
Address: 8 Garrod Place, Stirling, South Australia
Comments: As I finished my degree and decided to stay on for another year to do Honours, one of my close friends gained custody of a house nearby. His grandfather had lived there, but recently died. So we moved in, three friends, Phil, Farmer and me. This address soon became a centre of Adelaide revolutionary activity.
Date moved in: February 2002
Address: 31 Mackenzie Street, Brunswick, Melbourne
Comments: I moved to Melbourne to find work in publishing. I started out staying with a friend in Brunswick.
Date moved in: March 2002
Address: Argyle Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne
Comments: When I got a room in this house, right near the corner of Johnson and Brunswick Street, centre of Fitzroy, I didn’t realise that I was moving right into the heart of what was then the pseudo-hippy / arty / druggy Melbourne night-town. At that time, street-art was in it’s absolute hey-day, with the walls of Fitzroy expanding outwards under the layers of paint. But it was around this time that the prices started rising sharply, Fitzroy culture was watered down or flushed away, and we got kicked out of our 6-person slum-house by a developer seeing dollar signs.
Date moved in: June 2002
Address: Newry Street, Carlton North, Melbourne
Comments: Escaping the house like rats from a sinking ship, me and one of the other Argyle Street residents took out a lease on a flat in Carlton North. This was a convenient compromise - a decent location, a decent price - but for me there has always been something dead about Carlton North. I covered an entire wall of the lounge-room with a massive collage of photgraphs. This took days.
Date moved in: June 2003
Address: 134a Edward Street, Brunswick, Melbourne
Comments: Glad to escape the Carlton flat, and its deranged neighbours, I moved into this fine art-deco house in Brunswick, with a couple of acquaintances. This was a beautiful house, in beautiful Brunswick.
Date moved in: July 2004
Address: My tent, East coast of Australia
Comments: Something inside me had reached its limit with working and living in the city. I quit my room in the house, quit my various jobs, and set off with a tent and a small put-put car. These two were my mobile home, travelling from Bermagui and Eden in the far south-easter corner, right up the coast as far as Cape Tribulation in the north. Along the way I stayed on various farms where I worked.
Date moved in: October 2004
Address: Above the newsagent on the corner of Albert Street, Sydney Road, Brunswick, Melbourne
Comments: After months out bush, with plenty of time to think and stare at the stars, I had formed a plan. The first part involved going back to Melbourne to do some freelance editing. I was going to stay with my old friend in Brunswick, but we had a fierce argument. By luck, another editor I knew had a spare room in her place on Sydney Road, and was happy for me to rent it for a while. This turned out to be an absolute favourite among all my houses - it was airy, and had ambience, an amazing location… unfortunately one of the neighbours turned out to be psychotic, but he’s dead now…
Date moved in: April 2005
Address: Donnybrook House, corner of Morehampton Road and Marlborough Road, Ranelagh Dublin
Comments: A sort of boarding house, in which all the other residents were Slovakian or Russian. I shared a room with four Slovakians, all earning Dublin money of which they sent most back to their families in Slovakia.
Date moved in: May 2005
Address: Frankfort Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin
Comments: I got lucky in finding a new house, stumbling upon this funny old place, which was covered in colourful paint. Housemates turned out to be fine folk, and through living there I met the inspired artist, and good friend, Daniel Shaw-Smith.
Date moved in: September 2005
Address: Rathgar Avenue, Rathgar, Dublin
Comments: I had to leave the house of fun in Frankfort Avenue, filling in the gap with this dull place down the road. One of my housemates here, Rohan, was the most boring person in the world.
Date moved in: November 2005
Address: Cabeza Gorda, Segura de la Sierra, Andalucia, Spain
Comments: After escaping Dublin, I stayed for a little while in a stone hut on top of a mountain. It was incredibly cold. The place’s name translates as “Fat Head”, due to an unusual rock formation that was right on the peak of the mountain.
Date moved in: January 2006
Address: ‘Peregrine’, 70 Mount Barker Road, Stirling, South Australia
Comments: Then I spent a month visiting the Adelaide Hills again.
Date moved in: February 2006
Address: Britten Close, Golders Green, London
Comments: Back in London, six years on from the previous debacle. The first place I found was sharing a fourth-story flat with two Greeks. The flat had great views, and the flatmates were very nice. I generally like all Greeks in London.
Date moved in: April 2006
Address: 234B Archway Road, Archway, London
Comments: I shared this flat for six months with Shane, Katarina and Oriana. More good views - and Highgate Woods was very nearby.
Date moved in: October 2006
Address: 15 Pitfield House, Highbury New Park, London
Comments: A very small apartment, with four people in it - but very close to central London, and cheap too. Only real problem was all the inherent criminality of the location, which was part of a large council estate.
Date moved in: March 2007
Address: 47 St John Street, Oxford
Comments: Just three weeks living in this place, mostly with computer nerds. The street was very fine, but my room was rather small. Most uncomfortable bed I can recall.
Date moved in: April 2007
Address: 61 Rymers Lane, Cowley
Comments: Current address - a beautiful house with a garden!
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