Linda & Stormy

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Linda and I live here, at Nightingale Wurru wurru biik, with Stormy, a pigeon I rescued a year ago. I used to work in IT. I became unwell and back then, you couldn’t really work in IT part-time so I moved to caring work which I really enjoyed. I retired a week before I moved here. 

You’ve been here for 2 months now, how is it going?

Oh, it’s fantastic. I absolutely love it. Around six years ago I heard about Nightingale, I went on a tour with my housemate and I thought ‘This is it, this is what I want.’ When the Wurru wurru biik project came up, I put in 14 preferences for the ballot and was lucky enough to get this one. It’s got an incredible view of the mountains and I am up on level 7, so it really doesfeel like sky country. I can also just skip up one set of stairs to the rooftop.

What drew you to moving here?

I lived in Brunswick many years ago. I worked in Brunswick for many years. It’s so vibrant and different. I go to the Melbourne Buddhist Centre in Brunswick. I have a lot of friends around here. It made sense. I fell in love with Nightingale and its ethos and wanted to be part of that.

Is it feeling like a community yet?

Yes, it’s very quickly become very friendly, functional and efficient. We had the construction period to get to know each other a little, at meetings and over WhatsApp, so we already knew each other’s names. On settlement day, many of us gathered on the rooftop for champagne, even though it was freezing. It was great to put names to faces and everyone was just so excited. I’ve lived in lots of places prior to this and nowhere has been nearly as friendly. 

What other community activities have been happening?

I am involved in a few of our subcommittees, mostly around waste and security.  “The Trash Talkers” is our unofficial waste committee name [laughs]. We’re getting organised at the moment, it’s a big education piece for us all. People come from different backgrounds and locations where recycling is handled differently. It’s also always changing and can be confusing. We’ve visited the famous Nightingale Anstey bin room and we’re getting some good advice from the residents there. We hope to work with them in the future. We can share tasks like taking loads to the tip for example.

We’ve designated a few different areas on the rooftop for different things. One laundry is also a library. One for tools. One of the dining areas has lots of stuff for the kids like costumes and toys.

There is a lot of ingenuity, a lot of talented people in this building. There's so many artists who are all amazing. One of my young neighbours is going to have an exhibition of her pet photography portraits on the rooftop. She’s done some photos of Stormy and me.

Tell us about Stormy.

I've had Stormy for almost a year. I was taking some stuff back to the tool library and saw some people gathered around a milk crate in the car park. There was baby Stormy with his giant beak (because they grow into their beaks). People were going to call Wildlife Victoria but I thought they wouldn’t want to know about a pigeon and a vet would probably euthanise him. So I thought ‘I’ll take him and feed him then let him go when he grows up’. Turns out it doesn’t work that way. They imprint on you and by the next day, I was his person.  I had to do a crash course on pigeon husbandry. 

Have you had a pigeon before?

I’ve had cats and rabbits. I’ve had lots of birds, but mostly budgies that you care for very differently.  Pigeons feed very differently when they’re young. They put their beak inside the parent’s beak and the parent regurgitates the food, so you have to simulate that with a little reusable bag, soak the grain, and cut the end off where the pigeon sticks their little beak so you can funnel the food down. When he was little, he couldn’t fly and he would come with me everywhere. He’d come to Bunnings on my shoulder and people would take pictures of us. Now he’s older, he’s nesting for the first time because it’s spring. 

Are there any other unusual pets in the building?

There are a lot of dogs, mostly oodles, and cats. We have a pet channel on WhatsApp, and our motto is 'no secret pets'. You simply must share photos of your pets in the building. I probably know all the names of the dogs and cats more than I know the people [laughs].

Do you think you will live here forever?

Oh yes. They will need to wheel me out in a box [laughs].

There are a few commercial spaces available at the base of this building. What would you love to see there?

Yes, I met Matt from the Print Lab that’s just opened up the other day. He seemed like a very a nice chap. It’s great to see more of the spaces starting to open. 

I’d love to see a yoga studio I think it would be very well attended. I think a co-working space would be very successful too. A restaurant, maybe sushi, would be great. 

Favourite places in Brunswick?

I just love going to Nina’s.

A1 Bakery is the best.

Tochi Deli.

Leon’s Pizza - they do a mean mushroom pizza with truffle oil.