The Girl in the Melbourne Bubble

I have had a few requests from folk for more specific news about me and how things are going with my raison d'etre for coming to Melbourne, namely my grand scheme of writing a novel. So here goes then.

I am very fortunate so far to be staying with a friend, Debbie. Debbie has been wonderful making me feel at home and she is great company in the evenings. In fact it has become part of her greeting as she returns from the office to ask me what I got up to during the day. She seems awed at how many people I am talking to and how much of Melbourne I am getting around in such a short space of time. Debbie is a kiwi girl, who when offered a fabulous job in Melbourne, decided to in her words, 'suck it in' and make the permanent move with a container load of her worldly possessions. She arrived at the start of winter but her gutsy attitude did not let the cold or the shortened days get her down. She is fast making Melbourne her home and can't wait till summer to explore a bit more although she tells me that the thought of forty-five degrees at midnight on New Year's Eve as it has been for the past two years, is just not on.

Debbie came down with flu a couple of days after I arrived with my Auckland cold so the two of us were rugging up by the oil heater to cough and splutter our way through an evening. What sad old nanas we were but apart from some lingering flem in the chest, we are now like the fifth book, mostly harmless.

A new flatmate is due to move in with Debbie in a couple of weeks so I have made contact with the local YWCA and put my name on the list for accommodation at the single women's house in Richmond Hill. They will let me know when a room becomes vacant and I would be able to move in on the same day. Any overlap between bases I plan to spend at a backpackers. I have booked into a place in Fitzroy called The Nunnery which has lots of character but more about that when I get there.

As far as the writing is going, well obviously I am doing lots of travel blog stuff and there is so much more being written but not posted that I will include in the finished Blog Book adventures of my travels. So all of you that think you can get away with not buying a published copy because you thought you were getting it free on the internet, think again. If you want the full story, you will have to buy the authorised book when it's finished and the author will happily sign it for you.

And the novel? The original goal of the venture? Well in two weeks I have written over 100 first draft pages. It is amazing how prolific I am when inspired, motivated and have lots of time to indulge my passion for writing. Now if I can just manage to achieve this all the time and make a decent living from it, I will be the happiest Larry you could imagine.

I have reached a good stride to my day with a perfect harmony between writing blog, writing novel, exploring, taking photographs, music (I have another song written to add to my collection), with the odd bit of Sussy solitaire thrown in to amuse me while Debbie watches Neighbours and Home and Away. I balance my day by starting with a bit of yoga to the melodic sound of Swell Season, the CD from the Irish movie Once. Just perfect.

And finally for today, I miss everyone and Auckland heaps but am comforted and delighted to be hearing from you so keep the emails and blog comments coming people. You have no idea how important hearing from home is to the Girl in the Melbourne Bubble. It lets me know that there is a world beyond Sussy's keyboard which, can sometimes be a vacuum sucking up hours of time in the blink of an eye. It reminds me of the important stuff. In two short weeks Melbourne has been kind to me, being just what I was looking for to put the bounce back in my life but every time I log on to check my emails I am reminded that as Dorothy said, there is no place like home because home has the people I love in it.

xxx