Month completed: August 2011

I find it interesting to think about all the generations of Tully’s that came before me, and what their lives were like, where they came from and what they did with their lives.

Fortunately, Uncle John Tully was similarly interested, and spent years researching and putting together a quite detailed look back at the Tully family history, all the way back to the 1700’s.

It was really fascinating to see the family history, and hear the trials and tribulations of the different families, and to discover that it was in 1851 that the first of the Tully’s, Thomas Tully (my great-great-great-grandpa), moved to Australia from Armagh in Northern Ireland.

In 1857 he bought 20 acres of land in Doncaster in the east of Melbourne, on the corner that is now home to Westfield Shoppingtown (back then, it was known as Tully’s Corner). Click map to see full version.

I won’t bore you with all the details of the original Australian Tully’s life, but here’s a few of the more noteworthy points:

• He got drunk once and sold part of the land for a lot less than it’s value (must be where I get my bad judgement when drunk from!)
• He was a member of the Church of Christ, and once seconded a motion to boot out less pious family members
• He did a range of jobs, including building huts and chopping wood, as well as tending to the property
• He and wife Jane had 6 children
• When he died, aged 39, he was buried in an unmarked grave at Lilydale Cemetery, all of about 5 minutes drive from where I grew up!

There were several other interesting parts of the Tully family history worth mentioning, not all of them pleasant.

Manslaughter charges

When Thomas died, his widow Jane married Thomas’ brother David. David was a drinker who got violent with Jane one night and inflicted injuries that caused her death four days later. He was tried in court for manslaughter, but insufficient evidence meant he was convicted instead of grievous bodily harm, aggravated assault and common assault.

Amazingly, a member of the jury in the trial was one of David’s friends (could you imagine that happening today?), and David was given just 3 months in gaol, as the judge decided it was more important for him to care for the children (who actually testified against him in court). I imagine the dinnertime atmosphere would have been a bit frosty.

Missing the boat

My great-great-great-great-grandparents, the McAuley’s, came to Australia with nothing, bought a place for £9, which they later sold for £2,500. This was enough to get them on a boat back to Ireland.

They put everything onto the boat, went to say final goodbyes (as the boat wasn’t due to leave for several hours), but somehow managed to not get back in time and missed their boat.

It is interesting to think how different things would have turned out if they had not have caught that boat. If they had, their daughter Jane (my great-great-great-grandma) would not have met and married Thomas, and who knows what the family tree would look like now.

6 generations of Thomas

Of the 7 generations of Tully before me, 6 of them were called Thomas going back to the 1770’s. My middle name is Thomas, to sort of keep the tradition alive, but Mum wasn’t keen on having another Thomas in the family.

A famous photographer

Charles Nettleton, the man credited with the only photograph of the famous bushranger Ned Kelly, was a distant relative of the Tully family.

Frank does a Tully a favour

I liked this story, about my great-grandpa Thomas. While on a train with a friend called Frank he met a woman named Edith. Thomas was too nervous to ask her out, so Frank asked her out instead. When Edith arrived for their date, she discovered Thomas, not Frank, waiting for her.

After getting over the confusion, the two of them had a nice night and were married shortly after.

They were married for 35 years and had seven children, including my grandpa Thomas Tully.

Final thankyou

Thanks very much to my Uncle John for doing all the research into our history, and for sending me across a copy of your work for me to enjoy.

To everyone else – if you don’t have an Uncle John in your family, I would suggest trying ancestry.co.uk. I haven’t tried it myself, but it looks like a pretty good resource for starting to put together your own family history.

UPDATE: Reader Adrian sent me this link as well, as another website for tracking down relatives – http://www.genesreunited.co.uk

But not in a good way…

That’s what happens when you try jumping off a fence after consuming too much daddy juice I guess.

6 weeks in a sling and I will be back on deck again. Although I have my bungee jump booked for the end of August, so I am looking for a quick recovery.

Month completed: July 2011

I admit it, this was a fun one.

It was late in the picture when I first decided I wanted to read Harry Potter and find out what all the fuss was about.

By this stage, all seven books had come out, as had the first five movies.

The last of which I finally saw part 2 of last night, completing this goal.

It was actually really handy starting when the books were all out, as it meant I could pick up the next one as soon as I finished the one I was reading. I feel for the kids who had to wait a year between books – that would have been tough.

I’m not sure what it is about the series, but I can definitely understand why they took off like they did. All of them were gripping, with great characters, a really good bad guy (I won’t mention his name) and a nice underlying message about working and sticking together.

If you haven’t read them yet, I encourage you to, whatever your age. You won’t be disappointed.

I can officially now say that I have performed in Shakespeare’s Hamlet on the London theatre stage.

Yes, you read right. Although not quite as you might expect.

I was in the audience (mistakenly in the front row) watching a comedy performance of all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays, abridged into 2 hours, when I was pulled up onto stage to play Hamlet’s ego.

This involved running back and forth around the stage, pretending to be scared, while the audience as a whole acted out the role’s of Hamlet’s Id and Superego (don’t ask me what these mean – I have no idea!). This might help.

One of the goals on my list (#117) is to perform in a local theatre production. My question to you is – does this performance count? The first person to comment with their opinion will decide it for me.

Image via here.

From Mark Twain:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Month completed: May 2011

Not one of the official goals on the list (not sure why not really!) but one of my favourites so far. On a beautiful day two weeks ago in the Scottish highlands, Nat and I finally tied the knot.

It was a fantastic day, and all of our friends and family from Australia were there to help us celebrate (below is our bridal party, with Nat and I in the middle).

A brilliant honeymoon in Corfu (which I would highly recommend as a holiday destination) followed, and we are now experiencing the exciting first weeks of calling each other husband and wife.

Now that all that is said and done, I am ready to start getting cracking on some more goals off the list. A bungee jumping I got from my brother at Christmas might be redeemed very soon…

The countdown is on – I get married in exactly 11 days (gulp!).

This is my excuse for being quieter than usual lately, and will continue to be quiet for a little longer.

Wish us luck – I will share some of the day’s experiences when things calm down again.

p.s. Weirdly, this wasn’t one of my goals!

I just finished a fantastic book called Drive by Dan Pink, which is all about motivation, the rewards used to motivate us, and how the way people are rewarded (in a carrot and stick way) needs a major overhaul.

He also identified the three areas that motivate us in anything we do, which are:

• Autonomy (having control over the task, rather than being dictated to)
• Mastery (the task is something that we want to master)
• Purpose (that the task fits into a bigger picture somehow)

Interesting to take these into account when setting up your goal list. Looking back now, I think if I was to re-start this project, I would cut down the list significantly, to maybe 4-5 bigger things that I wanted to focus on getting better at in the next 12 months, and do that. Not that I regret this list – it has been a great way to taste test a bunch of different things to see what I would like to go further with.

One interesting question the book raised was the concept that ‘a great man is a sentence‘, for example Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was that he ‘preserved the union and freed the slaves’. Watch the video below for more.

I have been thinking over the past few days about what I want my sentence to be. Not sure just yet, but it is certainly a great way of focusing your mind on what is most important in your life.

Anyone interested in learning more about the right and wrong ways to motivate yourself and others should definitely read this book.

My sister Mel snapped this shot of her car’s speedometer as it reached the impressive milestone of 183,000 km.

Month completed: March 2011

I love eating out.

Not only do you get to eat delicious food, and spend quality time with others, there are also no dishes to do when you get home.

Back in Melbourne, Nat and I agreed that we didn’t really do it often enough. Sometimes the effort of picking a place, getting in the car, driving 15/20 minutes, finding a park, etc etc, is all too much, and the takeaway menu and TV suddenly become a lot more appealing.

So, this goal was an attempt to make sure we went out somewhere at least once a month.

Something we have noticed since moving to London though, is that going out for dinner seems to be much more common here.

For most people, a main street with plenty of restaurant choices is only a short walk away (for us, Upper Street is that street), and there are so many different cuisines, plus what I think are the best pubs in the world. Also, the Tube is so handy that jumping on for a couple of stops to get into central London is so much easier than getting in the car.

We now go out at least once a fortnight, and have several firm favourites (Mem & Laz serves the best lamb chops I have ever had, and we just discovered an amazing Moroccan place around the corner).

It’s great just to spend some quality time with Nat as well – that is probably the best part of all.