Things you should know about moving city

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Photograph by the wonderful Rummage

It won't be easy. It will be terrifying, stressful, and at times really very tedious. You may never be sure that you made the right decision. You'll spend moments, early in the morning resting against the armpit of a stranger on a crowded tram, weighing up the relative merits of career opportunity and access to a greater variety of shops, restaurants and musical venues against friends, family, space, a garden and mountains. You will have insurmountable issues with parking permits, local councils, landlords, and highly breakable glass cook-tops. Your friends might not see the merit of your ways and instantaneously migrate two months after you do, much to your surprise and disappointment.

But, if you're very, very lucky, you might get to walk home through Carlton Gardens every day. A special person might decide to move with you, at considerable expense to his or herself, and might even cook you dinner and fold your laundry every day during extended periods of unemployment. You might find yourself working with some of the kindest, most intimidatingly brilliant people you'd ever hope to meet, and get to travel to places as exotic and diverse as Fiji and Albury Wodonga. You just might get to live in a crazy beautiful Victorian house with two fireplaces, gold wallpaper and a sculpted Art Noveau ceiling. And upon wandering your block you might find two beautiful clothing stores, an exquisite florist, fabulous green grocers, deli and bookshop as well as the city's most exciting bar without even crossing a single road. Should your blessings be many, you might have an favourite aunt nearby who lets you pick vegetables, herbs and flowers from her garden, and invites you over for a suburban BBQ every few weeks. And if you're really, very fortunate you might find that you don't mind your new city very much at all. In fact, you rather like it.