Monday, March 12, 2007

The Bear Regency

Another grand Saturday looking at houses with Bear. Really, she's such a good girl. While the process is slightly testing on her parents' patience, Bear quietly slips off into dreamland in her capsule and stays that way while dad carries her around and works his maligned muscles manoeuvring her through doorways and around the legs of fellow house inspectors.

"Does this floor need a restump or did the earth just do a little shift?"

*blissfully sleeping Bear*

"Oh, pink and white tiling in the kitchen, how tasteful!"

*blissfully sleeping Bear*

"Nice to see the neighbours have 3 V8s, we'll have to have them over for bookchat..."

*blissfully sleeping Bear*

So it goes.

We've moved north from the Northcote Hub, hill, knob, whatever one might call it, slid up along the slats of temperate Thornbury, and now, along no doubt with everyone else who doesn't have a spare $600,000 wedged in their arsecrack, we are undertaking recon missions into hitherto uncharted territory- Preston above Bell Street, Coburg, Pascoe Vale South, Regent.

A level of geographical precision takes hold, as Preston becomes a hierarchy of preferences from South Preston West to North Preston West to Preston Proper not-too-close-to-Northie. Regent West trumps Regent Ressie. Coburg North and Pascoe Vale Proper get excluded.

Bear looks out the window at alternating period homes and butt ugly townhouses springing out of every spare crevass. The decision's yours, she implies, just get on with it. Mao and Minh-Minh concur...

Proximity to cafes and shops becomes at once more relevant and harder to achieve, because when you have a Bear and two energetic catlings to cultivate the fact that a 3 bedroom fully renovated period home with a nice garden in Regent is the same price as a small rickety townhouse in Northcote, 10 minutes down the road, is hard to resist.

Bear sits next to me, waiting for hugs, so it's adios for now...

6 comments:

lucy tartan said...

I reckon Celia might live next door to me; in this suburb the Friday night chillout music of choice is Skyhooks followed up with Meatloaf. But the house was 280 thousand and has two living rooms. And is five minutes walk from cafes, shops and a train station.

I reckon you could look even further out, you might be pleasantly surprised.

JahTeh said...

You were missed on Friday night but Darlene made up for it with photos of her lovely cat on her mobile. It was a good venue though, plenty of comfy seats.

BwcaBrownie said...

re houses: pick The Bear's school FIRST, then you will know where to buy. Yes it will cost more to buy near a school, but you should first find out how expensive a Term tram ticket is and multiply that by 36 Terms.
Ref: study small children lugging giant backpacks onto trams. and carrying their violin and laptop as well. however costly the school badge on the bag is, it is still child cruelty. adults on trams cut the poor little thing no slack at all.

re cats: (cover Minh's ears) Darlene's cat is very very beautiful.

Yes you were missed at the bloggermeet, but the next one could be a sunday afternoon in a park and therefore child friendly.

Anonymous said...

Come north. Once in a while, I find something nice that reminds me of why I like the suburb you're considering.

Like the other day, we found a perfectly nice cafe/patisserie in a very suburban side street, not 10 minutes from the tram. Surprising. And the lemon tart and sausage rolls were pretty ok.

And the primary schools are pretty good. And we can walk to school.

But $280k and two living rooms? What's your secret, Lucy Tartan?

Anonymous said...

No no come WEST!
We live in a fabulous part of Yarravile and no WAY are prices what you are quoting.

And there's space and parks and you're spoiled for choice for primary schools (less so for secondary, but that's a ways away for you) - there is even decent community based child care still extant here. and the "village" part has all the Kulture you could ever want including the Fabulous Sun cinema / bookshop / cafe hub.

GO WEST!!
Or else do what Laura says, also excellent.


Cast Iron Balcony

pedro velasquez said...

The Hyatt Regency hotel walkway collapse was a major disaster that occurred on July 17, 1981 in Kansas City, bet basketball Missouri, United States, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 others during a tea dance. At the time it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history
Construction on the 40-story Hyatt Regency Crown sportsbook Center began in 1978, and the hotel opened on July 1, 1980 after construction delays including an incident on October 14, 1979, when 2,700 square feet (250 m2) of the atrium roof collapsed because one of the roof connections on the north end march madness of the atrium failed, The building was part of a master plan devised by Edward Larrabee Barnes and specifically designed by the newly created architect firm PBNDML. It was Missouri's tallest building.
http://www.enterbet.com