The Houses Of My Life...

Here's a tour of the places I've lived in my life, spanning 3 countries and 2 continents.

It all started here in England. This is the house where I was born....

When I was ~6 years old we moved to the house where I'd live until I left home ...

Somewhere around here, me and my friend shared a house. Didn't last long. It was the formative years of Acid House...

In 1989, Summer Of Love, - my brother and I shared an apartment
in this renovated Victorian building in the centre of Manchester. Happy Days...

After traveling, I returned back to Manchester and lived in the leafy suburbs. Here I painted my rented room and lived in fear of the land lady from entering the place. Looked great, but she wouldn't have appreciated it ...

The following winter I moved to Seattle. I had this great place in the Queen Anne neightbourhood, it had a panoramic view of the city, Mount Rainier, Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains. Lots of fun went down in this place ...

After M and I outgrew our small apartment we moved up the road to West Queen Anne. It was a lovely place with a big deck overlooking a great garden, we became great friends with our landlady - who we still visit in Seattle every now and again. We lived here for a few years, had many happy times, got married and then come up a mad idea to go live on an island. The old house has been torn down and replaced with a much bigger building. The highlighted area shows the original location of the house...

This was our 1st place on Vashon Island. We considered this a transitional island dwelling, not out in the woods, but near the town so we could transition into 'island life'...

Transition over we moved to the middle of the island to a house with 5 acres! The land was lovely, often deer would roam into the garden. We had a cheeky peek view of Mount Rainier. About 1 month into this place - the owner decided to put the house on the market, so we decided to bail...

So we moved to the center of the island, and rented a house off a lovely lady called Rogene. We had several good years here. During the summer months, deer would sleep in the bushes in the yard - all very sweet. The air was so fresh, and with almost no light pollution the skies where filled with stars. This is where I really felt at one with nature. Epic. After 3 years, we decided to move back to the city... I was working a lot, the commute was quite long...

We moved back into Seattle into a neighborhood called Ballard. A Norwegian fishing village which over the years has become a hip spot filled with great restaurants, bars and clubs. We had fun here, catching up with friends and hanging out. During a trip to Europe the company closed my studio and with it came an offer to relocate to Vancouver, Canada... So the short but sweet stint back in Seattle came to end ... and the adventure continued...

In Vancouver we picked a place with all the hallmarks of Ballard - beach community, restaurants. We fell in love with the place.We'd walk to the beach most nights, even in the rainy winter months. We didn't know many people, but it didn't matter... we had one another and we enjoyed exploring our new town...

We decided it was crazy to pay someone else mortgage. So we bought our 1st house in East Van. We lucked out, because we'd managed to buy a nice place within a great neighborhood with very, very nice neighbors. In fact, this is rare - but I know all my neighbors, get along with them... and in a neighborly fashion socialize with them in the summery gardens enjoying a wine or two. Lovely.