It’s Sunday afternoon and I’ve just awoken from a nap. After some lovely bread and a couple of glasses of wine, and some Italian-style veal for lunch, I needed a little lie down, especially as I’m heading out to dinner tonight.
Yes, lunch was great. This afternoon I went with old schoolfriend, Anthony and his mate, JT, to the Italian Festival in East Sydney, which I enjoyed immensely.
Unlike Norton Street with its large wide streets, this festival based around Stanley Street seems to more genuinely have the feeling of a small Italian street party.
Unlike some cultural festivals, I also thought it had a fairly contemporary feel, even though there was Eurovision-style crooning, and piano accordian/violin folk. When they sang “That’s Amore”, for example, it didn’t feel corny, it felt real and heart felt.
When you mention the words “Dancing” and “Columbian Hotel” in the same sentence, you don’t immediately think of ballroom dancing.
But that’s exactly what my friend and I saw when we had a late afternoon drink at The Columnbian.
Downstairs we were chatting with a transexual women about her life. Upstairs, they were doing a bit of ballroom dancing. I’m ambivalent about which was the most interesting.
On two occasions today I was asked “what did you do for your birthday”? The first answer I gave was “Absolutely nothing. I hardly left the house…” The second answer was in response to my blog… “I read your blog and so I got the sanitised version of Friday night, but what really happened…”
The short answer is Friday night was as described, and Saturday was also as described. I didn’t do much at all.
Pork at Four14
But on Sunday I went out for lunch with my friend, Michaela. We went to Four14, a restaurant on Fitzroy Street, Surry Hills, where we enjoyed, really enjoyed, like really, really enjoyed, their roast pork. It was excellent and we had a lovely time.
After lunch we wandered upstairs to Somedays, the Swedish clothing store in Surry Hills I’ve often blogged about.
There wasn’t a lot to interest me this time, aside from a brief chat-ette in Swedish with the owner. Like most Swedes in Sydney, he probably thought I was a bit of a freak, but I figure that’s his problem, not mine. Having solidly convinced Michaela of the extreme value of Swedish jeans, she’s due to return there in a week. Instantly, the owner recognised I was buying a pair of jeans from there also. Honestly, Swedish jeans are the most comfortable, best fitting jeans I’ve ever worn.
Later, we had a drink at The Columbian. What better way to spend my forty-somethingth birthday?
When she first appeared on stage, I actually thought it was a drag queen. “She must be 100 years old by now”, I thought to myself. But as the performance rolled on, and when she promised she would return next year with the other members of legendary 1970s Euro-disco outfit, “Silver Convention”, I knew it really was the awesome Penny Maclean. What a privilege.
The traffic on Cleveland Street, Surry Hills is always pretty bad, especially on weekends, as people make their way to sports grounds or the beach. It was even worse yesterday, as I observed quite innocently with this Twitter post at about 2.15pm.
I knew something was up, and in hindsight, I know I should have called the ABC Newsroom, to alert them. But I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. I just thought it was crazy Sydney weekend traffic.
A few hours later, the reason for all of the police, and one lane of Cleveland Street being closed was clear. Along with a number of other homes in Sydney, a house in Surry Hills was being raided, because of an alleged plot to take a bomb onto a plane.
I was at the pub on the corner when the news came through. Though most people were still watching the footy, there were a few of us aware of the news, and I chatted with a couple of people about it. The bloke sitting next to me, though, didn’t quite believe the news until I showed him a breaking news report on my mobile phone.
I also found it funny that my family always calls me when something terrible happens in Sydney. Normally, I tell them “it’s miles away and there’s nothing to worry about”. This time, when it was in my neighbourhood, there wasn’t a word from them.
News of an attempt to take a bomb onto a plane (heaven knows how they would make it through security) is always a cause of concern, especially since I’m spending a few days this week in Melbourne, and flew down this afternoon.
On a whim, a couple of days ago, I decided to upgrade my economy class flight with some bonus points. What a fortuitous move that was. As I arrived at Sydney Airport, there were three queues to get through security: business class, premium class, and economy. With delays of about 30-40 minutes for the first two, and I’d estimate more than an hour for the economy, I’m glad I used those points.
Oh, and you can hear more about this, as I chatted briefly on the phone to ABC Radio Sydney.
The train trip to the Central Coast is pretty spectacular.
“It’s only eighty minutes, it costs ten dollars return, and you get to see some spectacular landscape along the way”, I told my niece Julie who was visiting from Darwin.
She’s a member of the Northern Territory team competing at the National Darts Championships, currently being held at Gosford.
By contrast, she and her team mates had flown from Darwin to Sydney (which takes about four hours), and then she drove one of two mini-buses they’d hired from Sydney to Gosford. On a wet and cold Sydney night on a trip that took them a further two hours.
My trip was a pleasure. I ate a sandwich, had a chocolate bar, read the paper (little bored with the continued line about the ABC in The Australian) tweeted, had a nap and almost before I knew it, I’d arrived.
We had a few drinks, grabbed a bite to eat at the nearby Gosford RSL, caught up on some family gossip, and I got to meet some of her team-mates all of whom seemed very nice.
And then came the train trip back home which seemed ever so much longer.
As I got onto the train at Gosford I noticed far too many young women with their skirts too high and far too many young men with their pants too low.
On the train I listened for a while to their conversations which mostly revolved around going out and getting wasted in Sydney tonight.
I tweeted, chatted, and read a few things. And then I got bored.
And then, of course, it was time for the world’s longest train trip – from Redfern to Central. How slow is that…
Seriously, I swear it’s twenty years since the last time I weighed 82kg. For as long as I can remember, I’ve weighed around 95kg. For a while I even weighed more than 100kg, which on a very very average statured man such as myself has not been “a good look”.
Like many people, I began to put on weight in my late 20s and early 30s. A little too much time in “the front paddock” and then all of a sudden you find the kilos pile on, and nothing you do seems to make much of a difference. But then a couple of months ago I found myself eating sensibly, drinking less (especially soft drink – that’s a killer for putting on weight I reckon) and a tiny smidgen of exercise, and I found myself under 90kg. As I’ve continued this pattern, I’ve found myself losing even more weight. I’m now down closer to 80kg, which is still overweight for someone of my height and build, but I’m happy to have made it this far.
Generally, when I go travelling I lose even more weight, so I’m hoping my forthcoming trip to Stockholm will help even further. When I travelled to Sweden in 2008, for example, I lost about 10kg over ten weeks. I don’t imagine that will happen again, though I’d like to think it might. I think if I could closer to 75kg I’d be happier both mentally and physically.
Seriously, it must be 20 years since I weighed 82kg
The trip to Stockholm is taking up most of my “home computer time” at the moment, and why I haven’t blogged at all over the last week. My hours at home are spent looking for new and interesting things to do. I’m not one for “locking everything in to an unreasonable schedule” when I travel, but I do like to have some considered options. I like the idea of waking up every morning with something planned, as well as a few more options to explore.
I’m pleased to have found a solution to the “sold out ticket issue” for Benny Andersson’s Orkester at Skansen, as someone on ABBA Village had some tickets to sell. I’m also pleased to have read REALLY positive reviews for the apartment I’ve booked for my time there. It’s a brand new apartment complex which opened only a few weeks ago, and so far the reviews have been excellent. I’m looking forward to this holiday very much.
The remainder of the week? I’m off to a wedding on Friday afternoon of the son of a woman I used to share a house with (and hence the son also). I can’t believe he’s now 30 years old and getting married to a woman he has been in a relationship for over 10 years. Young people these days… :)
