That Time I Lived In Paddington

This morning I saw The Most Newtown Man Ever.

He was tall and skinny and his hair was in a man-bun. He wore aviator sunglasses even though we were on a train travelling underground. He had a t-shirt advertising Young Henry's beer, He probably had a dodgy tattoo sleeve, but I couldn't see through his cardigan. Oh, and he had a rolled-up yoga mat sticking out of the top of his backpack.

It reminded me of the time I saw The Most Paddington Couple Ever. I then wondered if I could stretch both these profiles into a story, like Humans of New York, but without the pictures and in Sydney.

Then later this morning I read a review for The Bellevue Restaurant, situated in the Bellevue Hotel in Paddington, and decided on something else.

So this is all about that time I lived in Paddington...

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When I lived in Paddington, The Bellevue Hotel would have been my local. Like really local. About 50m from door-to-door local. I might have been able to duck in for a quick beer at night and bring the baby monitor in case the boys woke up.

I'm joking, of course. As a responsible parent, I know I must drink in the confines of my own home.

The problem was that the Bellevue closed for renovations shortly before we moved there, and only opened again after we departed back to the Inner-West.

Welcome to the neighbourhood!

That meant my local was the Four-In-Hand, or maybe the Lord Dudley. I mean the Lord Dudley wasn't on my block like the Four-In-Hand, and I'd have to cross a street or two to walk there, but it was a pretty big block so it might have been quicker anyway to just cross some streets. Then again, it was also downhill, which means walking uphill home. This wasn't a problem with the Woollhara Hotel, which was a flat walk and also on the main road. So maybe the Woollhara was my local after all.

If you live in Paddington there are a lot of locals. So many pubs, so many restaurants, and so many pubs with restaurants contained within. It's amazing.

Of course, if you have small children you will never get to try any of them.

But that's not a huge problem, because Terry Durack will review all of them, as he did with the Bellevue. You can live vicariously through his reviews, although they are slightly formulaic.

The Bellevue review demonstrates the formula perfectly. Start with a rating of 14/20, then add a bonus point because he can order pork for both the entree AND main. Mention significant issues like complete lack of ambiance and a confused and complicated menu as an afterthought. Most importantly, location location location!  

As one of Sydney's premier restaurant reviewers, Durack must live somewhere near Paddington, because he never reviews anything that isn't easily accessible from Paddington. 

Some things are easily accessible from Paddington. Like Paddington. And Woollhara. There are also buses approximately every 17 seconds to the CBD or other eastern suburbs, they are nearly as fast as they are frequent, and some even go through the back streets. It's a great service, I saved hours in travel time to work. It is really clever planning to have one of only suburbs where it's affordable to regularly use taxis so heavily represented by bus routes.

Also there is a train station at Edgecliff, which is really close too, but it is also up a hill so nobody from Paddington uses it.

Where Paddington is not accessible is if you want to drive anywhere else.

The reason is Centennial Park. It's a big green space where there would ordinarily be roads. The result is all the traffic trying to go west or south - also known as where almost everyone and everything in Sydney actually is - is forced into a traffic bottleneck. This is why eastern suburbs people don't leave the eastern suburbs. They actually can't. Especially if the Swans are playing or the cricket is on, and the one escape route becomes a car park.

Needs more cars.

It's also hard to go north, but it's hard for everyone to go north.

Also needs more cars.

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The most Paddington Couple Ever was spotted on the Saturday morning of the NSW election. I was walking down a lane on my way back from the local polling booth. It is unusual to see anybody walking in these lanes, mostly because nobody in Paddington walks anywhere. So when I saw people walking towards me, I paid attention in a way I ordinarily wouldn't to passers-by.

I'm glad I did.

It was a young couple - I would guess early 30s. The guy wore white chinos and boat shoes. He wore a shirt with pink stripes, with the cuffs rolled up. His sunglasses were vintage, not in the sense that they were actually old, more a faithful and very expensive representation of an old-fashioned but now trendy style.

The girl was in a navy blue, obviously designer dress with designer handbag and designer shoes. I would've thought she was going to a red carpet event except it was morning not evening, and also she was carrying a little white fluffy dog.

You can never dress down in Paddington. And always carry your pet.

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They were The Most Paddington Couple Ever, but they also represent a misleading stereotype.

The typical Paddington person is actually old, and they aren't all rich. At one point Paddington was working class. This is reflected in the typical style of house - the terrace.

It's hard to believe now, but at one point in history it wasn't desirable to live in a narrow and cramped space, with common walls shared by neighbours on each side, with no parking or yard, and internal stairs that give you vertigo. 

There are other challenges. Yes, that is a bed in the sky.

The average age of my neighbours was probably 75. Good people.

One time when I was putting rubbish out for a council cleanup, and trying to figure out how to balance everything against my neighbours terrace wall without it falling onto the parked cars in the lane, the guy across the road called out from his upstairs balcony, "there's some good shit out there!". He thought I was looking through the scraps, and I explained I was trying to get rid of things. He then promised to take me out for a beer one day.

The character of the suburb reflects the character of its inhabitants.

Therefore Paddington isn't particularly geared towards families, especially with young children, because the suburb doesn't have a lot of families with young children. Playgrounds are hard to find and often not suitable - even the ones in Centennial Park are more appropriate for older kids.

However, there was a corner shop! A real one, not a 7-Eleven type place, it was proper retro. I only went there twice. The first time they sold me stale bread. The second time I bought 2L of milk and some vegetable oil for cooking. It cost $16.50. They clearly weren't competing on quality or price, just on charm.

Of course, Woolworths and Coles are basically the same everywhere. One thing to note though is that almost nobody at say, Double Bay Woolies, uses the reusable shopping bags - plastic bags are everywhere.

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I lived in Paddington, for just four months, a fortuitous and generous arrangement between selling an apartment and buying a house.

For the most part it was great, but ultimately in the timeless Sydney debate of inner-east versus inner-west, I'm in the corner of Newtown Man rather than Paddington Couple. I think Paddington is the right place, provided it's the right time. That right time is before children. Or after children leave home, if you don't plan to have so many material possessions that they won't fit inside a terrace.

So it just wasn't quite the right time for us.