Things-I-Love-Thursday: East Melbourne

It's coming up to almost a year since we bought our house here in the not-so-illustrious neighbourhood of Heidelberg Heights. It seemed like a good idea at the time. My best friend's house in mere streets away (although she remains in Canberra, painfully absent from it), it's close to shops and hospitals (a real selling point) and not too far from the northern suburbs of North Fitzroy, Fairfield and Northcote where I wished we could afford to buy a house. In other words, it was a good choice for first home buyers who didn't really have much of a choice.

Our new house in Heidelberg Heights

We were excited to have our own place and were on a post-European-holiday high when we bought it. Little did we know that our move would co-incide with me falling pregnant, and an horrific case of morning sickness that had me almost bed ridden for the first four months of our residence here. Needless to say, my relationship with the new house, and the new unfamiliar neighbourhood, suffered immensely. I was so homesick for our lovely, darling little flat in the much more civilised and exclusive pocket of East Melbourne. Like someone tossed out into the ocean, adrift on the seas with no land in sight, I mourned for my old home. I cried for the glossy life we'd lived in the city almost every day. This house was cold and empty and unfamiliar. The neighbours on one side were aggressive, alcoholic no-hopers instead of passive-aggressive, immaculately groomed investment bankers. Nothing was as it should be. I thought we had made a terrible mistake.

The move was the first in a series of things that would go ever so wrong for us during 2011, as you are all well aware. When I was pregnant with Max my uncomfortableness with the new house got to the point that I could not be here during the day on my own anymore. I'd wander aimlessly around Melbourne, sometimes just sitting in my car and crying, trying to pass the time until Leslie came home. Of course, much of this was symptomatic of the antenatal depression I was suffering at the time, but for me it was all linked into the relocation. Something was just not right.

I remember very vividly driving home from the hospital on the morning Max died. It's the part of the experience I remember most of all. We pulled into the driveway, our lives shattered, and with no idea what we were expected to do next. We came inside, dropped everything in the doorway, and collapsed into the shower, and then into bed, from where I did not think we would ever get out. In the time since I'd left home the day before, until the time we arrived home without our baby, something had changed in my relationship to the house, though. I suddenly felt that this was home. Since that day, I haven't had any of the mixed feelings towards the house that characterised our first few months here. I have settled into the neighbourhood, and while of course I'd like to be living somewhere much more fashionable, I'm very proud of the little home we have made together, and I enjoy tending to it, and the yard we are fortunate to have.

I still always think fondly of East Melbourne, though, and sometimes wish that I could snap my fingers and be right back there, minus all of the heartache and grief we have endured since we left. We held Max's memorial service back in March in the park around the corner from where our flat was. It reminded us of happier times. Exclusive inner-suburban locales can do that to you. The miserableness of well-to-do people seems to be hidden much more comfortably behind closed doors rather than played out in the front yard, as it seems to be done in our new street. I wasn't afraid of our neighbours there, I could get anywhere I wanted to be within ten to fifteen minutes, I had Fitzroy Gardens and the city within walking distance, and beautiful tree-lined streets to take me there. Yes, it was an arcadian Melbourne paradise.

I don't know whether it is the place itself, or the happy, carefree life we lived there, that gives me such a strong connection to the idea of East Melbourne. We had a gorgeous art deco era flat that was cosy and light, and sunny. I had my own little study nook, and due to its small size we were only ever a few steps away from each other, which is, as Leslie will attest, just the way I like it. I like to sit in my favourite chair and see all my favourite, loved things all around me. I don't like empty rooms and long lonely hallways that lead to out-of-the-way kitchens and bathrooms, which is why tiny one-bedroom flats have always quite suited me, with everything I love within arms reach.

When we moved to our flat, Leslie was living only a few doors up the road in a tiny bachelor pad, and I was living in Alphington, another lovely pocket of the inner-North. I fell in love with the flat the first time I saw it, and Leslie was determined to make sure we could get it, offering them many months rent in advance and hassling the estate agent every day after we applied to make sure she knew how keen we were.

Home sweet home in East Melbourne

We moved in on 1st December 2009, and the first thing we did was put up our new Christmas tree. We were so excited to be making a home together. That night is one of my happiest ever memories.

There's not much to dislike about East Melbourne, except, of course, that it is prohibitively expensive to live in. We could not have afforded to rent anything more than a 1 bedroom flat, and had absolutely no chance of buying into the area, or anywhere near there. I do hope we can retire there, one day, when I've written many best-selling novels and Leslie has revolutionised the internet in some way!

In the meantime I look back on our time there with great fondness, and some sadness that this happy part of our life is over.