I’m back in Sydney after what has been an excellent holiday.
Aside from the sunburn, I feel really great.
As I had a flight to catch at four, we spent much of today in the area around Glenelg and Brighton.
“I don’t remember all of this development from the last time I was here”, Sue commented at one point, noting how much high-rise is now in the area.
“It’s kinda like Fremantle, St Kilda, Manly and The Gold Coast combined”, I responded.
We had lunch at a great little bakery, looked in shop windows for nothing in particular, wandered out onto the piers at both locations, and generally relaxed in the sun.
We also paid a visit to the Bay Museum which focusses a lot on beach and surf culture, as you might expect.
Glenelg Memorial Wharf
Glenelg Town Hall
Sue walks on the pier at Glenelg
Zorita and her balloons in the museum at Glenelg
Bluestone house close up
Arch of Rememberance at Brighton
And before we knew it, it was time to head to the airport, and return home to Sydney.
It was such a great way to spend a week, with such a great friend in Sue. Here’s to more holidays!
Tomorrow I start a new job which I’m sure is going to be both interesting and lots of fun.
I had a really terrific Australia Day: the weather was great, I was invited to a couple of really terrific events, and I spent it with two really great, close friends. Unlike most public holidays, including Anzac Day, Christmas Day and New Years´ Eve/Day, there are fewer ¨expectations¨ with Australia Day.
Itś a day you can just do exactly what you want. If it means you want to spend it with friends having a BBQ at home, you can do that. It means if you want to go Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks, you can do that.
If it means you want to go to acknowledge the day as a day of invasion, occupation and imperialism, you can do that. No one judges you on Australia Day for how you choose to commemorate the day. You can do whatever you bloody well want.
For me, Australia Day started off meeting my friend Kate at about nine o´clock at Circular Quay. With a breakfast table strewn with coffee, pancakes, toasted ham and cheese sandwiches and some newspapers, we enjoyed the sunshine, had a good chat, and were just close enough to watch the end of the Wheelchair Marathon race.
From there we headed to Wharf 6, as I was lucky enough to be invited onto a three-hour cruise associated with the annual Sydney Festival Ferrython.
¨Do you remember the year one of the ferries sank?¨, I asked Kate as we walked on board at about ten oćlock. With virtually no expectation about what the next three hours had in store, Kate and I quickly found ourselves a space on a table in one of the end rooms on the middle deck. ¨Mind if we join you?¨, Kate said to a big boofy bloke with an English accent sitting alone at a table, before his Australian-born wife and cute children joined him.
As we sipped our first glass of champagne and orange juice, we realised how lucky we were. Within an hour or so, we were eating prawns, coleslaw and potato salad, and had moved on to beer.
Sorry – Australia Day 2008
Ferry Race
Sydney Harbour Ferrython
Australia Day at Darling Harbour
Overall it was a great way to spend three hours. An ice-cream followed, and then a walk around the Museum of Contemporary of Art. In the afternoon I returned home with every intention of heading to the anti-homophobia vigil, calling for a greater police presence on Oxford Street. But I had an afternoon nap instead, and slept through the alarm I´d set for 3.30pm.
Instead, I woke at about 6pm. I better hurry, I thought to myself, as I´d been invited to the Darling Harbour Convention Centre from 7pm, to watch the fireworks in a little more luxury than at the same time last year. The food was great, the wine and champagne were great, and the company was excellent.
At one point, Damien observed, ¨this is probably the most multicultural Australia Day event I´ve seen¨. As I looked around the room, I noticed it was true, with a truly representative cross section of people from a range of different cultural groups.
Earlier in the day, I had noticed a couple of Aboriginal blokes wearing Australian flags on their backs. Looking down from the balcony of the Convention Centre I noticed a veiled Muslim woman wearing one on her back. It went beautifully with her veil, by the way.
It was then I reflected on how some aspects of Australia Day which have come to represent intolerance in recent years have been once again re-appropriated as symbols for all Australians.
And of course, one of the great highlights of the day, cruising around the harbour, was looking up to see the word sorry appear in the sky.
It’s another do-nothing day where the most exciting thing I could muster was a decision about whether or not to shave.
Truth be told, I really hate shaving.
Most men feel the same.
Ask a bloke about his dream weekend and he’s likely to say, “not shaving, and not wearing underwear”.
I won’t deal with the latter in this particular post, rather the former.
It was only about 2 or 3 years ago that I actually needed to shave daily.
Until the I could get away with shaving ever other day, as I have fine and fairly blonde body and facial hair.
But obviously my male menopause hormones have kicked in, and now I need to shave daily.
At first it was a pain in the bum. All of those blades. All of that cream. And carefully making sure I didn’t carve half my face off in the process.
But I’ve learned how to speed up the process, and to do it properly, and have become such an expert that I can mostly shave in the shower now without a mirror.
Okay, I end up with the occasional bit of shaving cream stuck to the inside of my ear when I get to work. But it could be worse: one of my colleagues had toothpaste on the top of his ear a few months back.
Mostly though, I’ve streamlined the process, and so don’t find it anywear near as much of an imposition as it was when this whole, terrible, painful process began.
As they were re-setting the tables after last night’s “dinner session” a the Katoomba RSL, I noticed one of the blokes had a tape measure, and was measuring the distance between the tables. I overheard him tell a colleague about the “plain clothes inspectors” who were visiting local venues to ensure they were “Covid Safe”. As in the famous episode of “Fawlty Towers”, I wonder if he, falsely, thought I was a plain-clothed inspector!
Although everyone else had already left the room, I was still there, having arrived at a later time than most. Having enjoyed a fair bit of “steak and chips” lately, I went for the “butter chicken”. Since I lived near the corner of Crown and Cleveland Streets in Surry Hills (and am therefore spoiled when it comes to Indian food), I wasn’t expecting something anything terribly authentic. It was “average” at best.
Last night, “Katoomba RSL” was pretty popular. After dinner, I enjoyed a couple of drinks and watched a bit of footy on the TV, along with a room-full of others. It was a nice place to spend a couple of hours, and it was across the road from the motel where I was staying. I should emphasise the staff at the RSL did an awesome job checking everyone on entry and on leaving, and throughout to ensure everything was COVID-Safe.
I dined at Katoomba RSL because pretty much everywhere else in Katoomba was booked out.
From the look of things, they’re taking “COVID-19” pretty seriously, as you might expect for a town that’s highly reliant on the tourist industry. “Have you recently visited Victoria?”, was a question asked pretty much everywhere I visited, whether it be the hotel where I stayed to a cafe or a restaurant or a bar.
My visit to the Katoomba was one of those “spur of the moment” decisions. Four months of living and working from home, and I definitely needed some mountain air.
Overall, the town was pretty quiet, due to COVID-19, whereas winter would normally be pretty busy for them. Hopefully a few dollars from me will help the local economy.
At the suggestion of a few friends on social media I visited some bookstores and art galleries.
I also noticed there’s a terrific public art laneway, not far from Katoomba Street.
KatoombaKatoombaKatoomba
Naturally enough I visited a few tourist attractions, and have blogged about them elsewhere.
Of all the photographs I took, this is probably my favourite. Move over selfie-stick, this is how you capture your holiday snaps now. Spotted this family using a drone yesterday at The Three Sisters.
“As much as I love hearing about Chinese New Year, do you mind if I close your door?”, a colleague asked me the other day.
I was editing some material for a project I’ve been working on, and I guess the sounds of fire crackers and drums emanating from my office had eventually gotten to her.
Even though I have an office, I keep the door open most of the time, except for those confidential meetings. I was totally oblivious to the fact I was slowly, maddeningly driving her up the wall.
Some people thrive in an open-plan, others hate it. For the most part I’ve always enjoyed open-plan. Working in radio, I’ve become accustomed to writing and thinking with noise in the background. I can even do this when there are multiple sources of noise. It’s something I guess my brain has learned to live with.
I’m reminded of being in Estonia a few years ago and watching a television program which was simultaneously dubbed into Estonian and Russian, as well as the original English, and it was if the Estonian and Russian didn’t exist, because I could only hear the English. It’s interesting how the human brain can filter out different noises.
The brain can also focus in on a particular noise. For example, the sound of the exhaust fan in my bathroom almost drives me insane. It’s not like it’s the sound a jumbo jet about to take off, it’s just that the sound occurs at a particular frequency that gets inside my brain. Years ago, I recall asking Damien one day if he’d left the exhaust fan in the en-suite on, to which he replied “I don’t think so”. He couldn’t hear it, but I could. Weird eh?
But sometimes I, too, need a “sound break”. Today, for example, was my “sound break day”. After a few intense weeks I needed a day of not talking to anyone, and not having the sound of a radio or television rumbling in the background. In short, some time for my brain to “re-set” itself.
Even though I live in an inner city location, close to some major roads, I live in a pretty quiet street where the sound of traffic is usually just a distant rumble. However, it was at about eight o’clock when the traffic started to get noisy. And then the leaf blower started. And then in the back laneway, they started to pull down a tree and throw it in the shredder.
I quickly realised that was the end of my day of silence, and so I turned on the television and watched the first two episodes of the second series of “Smash”.
I first heard of Australian singer-songwriter, Shane Nicholson about a decade ago (maybe longer) when he recorded a terrific version of the song “Still In Love With You” by legendary Australian band, Dragon. And so, it put a smile on my face, when going to the toilet last night at the Camelot Lounge for the launch of Shane’s latest album, I discovered Dragon are soon doing a gig there. They’re playing “their hits”, as well as hits by some other “legendary Australian bands”.
It must have been the early 2000s. Over the next decade, Shane went on to marry (and divorce) legendary country-music singer, Kasey Chambers.
And that’s when Shane became “really interesting”. His break-up/divorce songs are terrific. Sad, reflective. In particular, there’s a wonderful song called “Second Hand Man” which I really love, about being a “Second Hand Man”, but moving on to a new relationship.
This is another favourite: Jimmie Rodgers Was A Vampire
With a style that’s usually described as “alt-country”, I really enjoyed last night’s show, as he played a terrific combination of new and older songs.
One of the highlights of the night was when he left the stage, and came down into the audience, playing acoustically. He said it was something he really enjoyed doing, ever since playing a gig where the power went off half-way through the show.
His support act last night was Tori Forsyth. For the most part, I thought her songs were a little too melancholy. But it really brought a smile to my face when she performed the song “Johnny & June” which she recorded and released about 12-18 months ago. A terrific song.
We’re currently doing some areas of grammar which, frankly, I struggle with in English.
Well, I don’t struggle with it, as I know this stuff inside and out, in both the written and oral formations.
But of course, I’m part of the experimental generation where grammar wasn’t emphasised. So the challenge is identifying what grammatical formation is in play, and then determining the Swedish variations.
Anyway, it was still fun, as always. And I got a “mycket bra” (“very good”) for my homework from last week.
My text book, Svenska Utifran
Wearing glasses for the first time is also a bit tough at the moment.
When I put them on, everything is clear. And in the office I’m able to move easily between close up work on the computer, reading, and having face-to-face conversations. Walking, however, remains a bit of a challenge.
Still, I wore them as much as I possibly could today. And I’m trying to walk around in them as much as possible to get my brain to understand what it needs to recognise.
Work was pretty good, though, as I achieved a fair bit.
And I caught up for a coffee with my retired former boss, which is always a good thing.
And I’ve booked some tickets for a forthcoming dinner put on by the Historic Houses Trust.
Colonial gastronomer, Jacqui Newling, and Elizabeth Bay House curator, Scott Carlin have consulted historic recipe books by Antonin Careme (1817), Dr William Kitchiner (1829), Eliza Acton (1845), Edward Abbott (1864) and Isabella Beeton (1859) to create a menu that both reflects 18th-19th century dining and the flavours of the spice trade.
Guests will have a unique opportunity to take their first course by candlelight in the dining room at Elizabeth Bay House, overlooking Sydney Harbour with later courses in the magnificent domed central stair hall or saloon. Guest will be shown the secrets of spices and be treated to gentle atmospheric music of the sitar.
Sounds great, eh?
So even though there were some tough parts of Tuesday, there were some good things also.
