Today marks the 12 year anniversary of when I moved over to Australia - and what a 12 years it has been - full of so much fun and so many adventures, that I can't clearly remember how it felt to live the life I had prior to arriving here. When I first arrived in Melbourne, I stayed in Clifton Hill before moving into a house in Richmond. I then moved into the apartment that faced that house. The next move was to a house-share in South Melbourne where I stayed for a short period before moving to an apartment in the city. A few months later, I moved to a quieter apartment in the same block where I stayed for a couple of years. At that time, I took a job in an outer suburb (Notting Hill) and therefore decided to move back to Richmond to avoid having to cope with the city commuters all the time. I stayed in the job for six months, but I stayed in the apartment for three years until I moved to my current location (almost St Kilda) last year. So that as been a lot of home moves (eight in fact) - and there have been many job moves too. Most of my time here has been contracting at various places before landing a permanent job at the nab (National Australia Bank) just over two years ago. Another change has been that I no longer am a techy - I started work in November 1979 as a computer operator and have worked in various roles in the IT world since then. However, this current role is more related to working with the Business and I just request for techy things to be done on the businesses behalf - in the old days, it would have been me actioning such requests. When I moved out here, I was on a visa and I kept having to renew the visa each time I moved jobs and it was in October 2005 time ago that I got my permanent residency and therefore didn't have to worry about visas anymore. It was certainly a difficult task to get the residency, but once I got it, all the efforts were worth while. Being on a visa is difficult because the visa gets cancelled if you're not working and then you have to leave the country - that affects how settled you can feel - but it also makes life more interesting as you make the most of your time as you don't know how long you will be here to enjoy it. The one scary time in there was back in March 2004 when I was thrown out of the country as an illegal immigrant after a visa mix up - it was 7.5 weeks before I was allowed back - there was a part of that time when it looked like I was gone for good - makes me shudder when I think back to it. It is a difficult task to sum up 12 years. Such an incredible number of events have occurred. So many adventures. So many people met. So many gigs attended. All those new bands I came across. Some wonderful shows. Great events. Delightful food - unfortunately I carry the reminder around my belly. It is hard to sum up the richness of the life that Melbourne has provided me with - I think I know what Spiderman means when he says that his senses are tingling. It is difficult to know whether I have changed as a person as I can't see myself - I do what I do and what feels right - I can't compare myself to previous versions as I can't separate my life down into chapters where I can view myself in different lights. I just can't detect changes very easily. I suppose that the way I can see change is by thinking about how I react to things. I think that I now make clearer decisions and they are based on better reasoning than they may have been in the past - in some ways there is less petulance or ego based decisions. I also think that I offer different things to others now than I used to - so maybe my content has altered. But using those two examples doesn't really say anything as we all grow and develop and I have done that all my life and just because I am here, it doesn't mean that it is because of being here. I am trying to think of how I have changed due to being in Australia for the last 12 years - and that is proving to be the difficulty point. So thinking of the 12 years and the life I lived, what differs from the world I left behind - I had been living in Oxford for the 18 months prior to my arrival. When I try and remember my life then, then there are so many changes to the life I moved to: The climate is better here. The streets are wider and there seems to be more sky around me than I am used to seeing (this is hard to express). It is easier to get around here with trains, trams and buses. It is cheaper to live here. There are many more cafes, bars and restaurants to choose from. There are many suburbs each with their own personalities. Live music is plentiful and accessible. People are more relaxed, approachable and friendly. There are more options of things to do - every day there are so many things available for me to do - I just have to choose which to do. So with those things that I've mentioned, I have probably been out and about a lot more than I would have been in the UK. I will have met many more people - and those people are more friendly and inquisitive than people I tended to come into contact with in the UK. I have been entertained with shows and music more than I would have been in the UK - there is so much happening here. The more interaction that you have with people and places, the more you develop and adapt and learn - so I must have grown as a person with that stimulation. Another influence is the better climate - for my first 10 years here, I didn't have a car and I relied on public transport and walking around the place. Though that means that I spent more time travelling than I would have with a car, it results in a slower and calmer pace to live and that feels good - my life has a good rhythm to it. And my last two years have found me on a scooter a lot of the time and though that is faster, it is still calm as there aren't traffic jams when you can scoot around and you can just park outside of wherever you want to go, so that is easy too. Maybe it would help if I think about what I miss from the UK - that might indicate something, so let me think. Yes, I miss decent TV. I miss some of the British humour. I miss the green rolling countryside and villages. I miss some people. That really isn't a lot in the scheme of things. So I see my life as calm, enjoyable and rewarding and it is full of great people and energy. I can't compare what I have to what is only imagined, but I certainly appreciate how good my life is and I enjoy the potential of each day. Ho hum P.S. I will be 50 next year - that is a scary thought - that is the age that old people are - not me.