Melbourne living: Wind and structures

It can be quite scary when winds whip at 90km/h, especially when it's also raining, and more so at night. Living in an old house doesn't help because I used to hear creaks and be afraid the house might be blown apart. I still hear creaks, but I'm just more used to it now, and it's better when Ian's home.

It also doesn't help that we've just watched Sherlock's The Hound of Baskerville, featuring dark spaces and scary sounds. Priming, they call it. When you watch something like that and you hear noises outside your home in real life, you are primed to think there might be someone lurking outside your home, even though there really isn't. It's just the howling wind blowing at your creaking home.

The houses here are built differently. When I first came in 2008, I remember knocking on the walls of the room I rented and hearing it all hollow. When guests were living in the room next to mine, I woke up to the sound of their rustling plastic bags. When a housemate moved in later, we invented a code to send messages to each other through different knock sequences and paces. When my guy friends were tussling in their home, they punched a hole through the wall. That's how they make (some) houses here.

Just some of the things about living in Melbourne. Not bad, just different.