Monday
It was Monday. A fine day.
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Happy New Year
I’m back in Sydney for New Year, for the first time in a few years. For the last few years, I’ve been spending New Year’s Eve in Lismore, often attending the Tropical Fruits party. While I’ve enjoyed those events, I must admit the music has changed a bit too much for my liking—it seems to be all “doof, doof, doof” without any lyrics these days! I usually find myself gravitating toward the Cabaret area, which is more my speed, but this year I didn’t feel like staying and decided to head back to Sydney instead.
I’d had a vague idea of attending the City of Sydney party at the Opera House, but I never quite got around to it. Interestingly, I discovered you can get tickets to watch the fireworks from the Cahill Expressway. A friend whose partner is in a wheelchair mentioned it to me, as they were heading there for the accessible display. While the idea of getting “down and dirty” with the massive Sydney crowds usually worries me, the Expressway vantage point seems like a great option for next year.
The highlight of my return was the flight back yesterday. We flew right past the harbour, offering a perfect view of the Opera House and the Bridge. It even passed near my office, so I could spot my building before we touched down.
Despite being back in the thick of it, I had a very quiet night. I watched a bit of the coverage on TV, listened to the radio, and was in bed early. I slept right through, save for that typical 3:00 AM wake-up call we men tend to have, and woke up feeling refreshed.
Travelling into town this morning, I’d forgotten how wonderful Sydney is at this time of year. So many people leave the city, making it surprisingly peaceful. Most shops in my area are closed, but the pubs and supermarkets are open. I ran into a friend from New Zealand who has lived here for 30 years, and we both agreed how lovely the city is when it’s this quiet. Fond memories of COVID!
My main focus is now on my overseas holiday in mid-February. I’m off to Sweden, Thailand, and the UK, so I popped into town this morning to grab a few essentials. That is my big focus for 2026 so far!
Australia Day
Aside from a wander into Hyde Park for a while, it’s been a reasonably uneventful Australia Day for me.
Hyde Park was, as usual for Australia Day, full of people, a variety of food stalls, some great, and some not so great musical entertainment, and lots of cars.
I don’t remember having seen that many cars when I’ve been to Hyde Park in previous years. But this year, there were cars galore.
Noticeably absent this year were large numbers of young people walking around with the flag draped over themselves.
Yes, there were lots of flags, but most people this year seem to have chosen to carry them, not wrap themselves in them.
I loved seeing a group set up on Facebook earlier today called “Flags should be hung from poles, not bogans”.
But aside from that, I’ve had a day of listening to music and fiddling around with my computer, and eating.
Yes, eating. I’m really hungry at the moment. And I’ve been eating a lot over the last few days. Maybe I’m psychologically stocking up for the cold winter of Stockholm?
Weekends Anxiety
It’s Sunday night, the end of another weekend, and I am proud to declare I think I’ve made a few inroads into my case of “weekends anxiety”. “Weekends Anxiety” is a phrase I’ve coined to define the paranoia experienced by those of us who work Monday to Friday, and who are of a “particular age”, that makes us want to cram everything humanly possible into the weekend, just in case we don’t have all that many left. It’s an anxiety based on the fear that if you haven’t organised lunch, brunch and dinner on both days with friends, and haven’t played sport, seen a play, or been to a movie, that a weekend is somehow wasted.
The weekend started, however, with a jolt. I woke yesterday morning to one the most dramatic headlines in the Sydney Morning Herald in living memory. With the SMH declaring, “World Wakes To Calamity”, I’d wondered if I’d woken up and had somehow missed a major natural disaster or a terrorist attack. But no, the SMH headline was about the latest United Nations report on global warming. I wondered if there was something of “the boy who cried wolf” about the headline, with the unfortunate resultant action being the broad populace would go on living in the same way, failing to do anything.
With the headline, however, strong in my mind yesterday afternoon, I wandered around Sydney, observing conspicuous consumption everywhere I looked. Have we survived so long as a species because we do recognise the need for change and adaptation, or is there something inherently selfish about our species that will eventually lead to our undoing?
Hopefully there’s room for optimism that humans do understand a problem when it occurs. Even when I went to the Art Gallery of NSW this afternoon (after a few hours at work), I noticed the nutters at Speakers Corner, were banging on about the environment. So I figure if the group of ratbags regularly found in The Domain on weekends are concerned, there’s room for optimism.
I’d gone to the Art Gallery to see the Anne Landa Award for contemporary art, currently on display up stairs. With an emphasis on video art, the award features artists including Philip Brophy, Daniel Crooks, James Lynch, Tony Schwensen, Grant Stevens, Monika Tichacek, and Daniel von Sturmer. Although I don’t really have the inclination to write a complete review, I was really impressed with most of the art on display.
And from the AGNSW, I wandered down through the Botanic Gardens, had a lie down on the grass, and wandered back through Surry Hills. Walking along Crown Street, I noticed something I’d read about but wasn’t absolutely sure about. I’d read about concerns Sydney Water is about to sell off the old Crown Street Reservoir. It wasn’t til I saw the protest signs that I knew exactly where it was, located closer to Oxford Street. The point the protestors are making is that if the reservoir is no longer needed, it could be turned into a small park with spectacular views.
My friend Colin and I went for dinner last night at RQ, one of my favourite restaurants in Sydney. As usual the food was excellent, but it was also very noisy last night and we waited far too long for the main course. Last night was my ex’s birthday, and oddly enough, his doppelganger was seated at the very next table. Unnerving to say the least.
So yeah, I made it through Saturday confident that I’d made good use of the free time afforded me. Today, however, was a different case.
I’ve spent most of the day watching television and playing around with this website. As you can see, I’ve moved “blog house” again, for the second time in as many years. I was with Netregistry for a few years and they were quite good, but then when they re-focussed away from personal accounts, and wouldn’t allow me to buy extra space, I went looking for another service.
So for the last year or so I’ve been with Byethost, supporting WordPress until this week when I realised what an amateur operation they really were. To be fair, they were trying to improve their service, but in doing so they changed database names and passwords without notification. When I politely suggested they had not communicated the changes well, I received this bullshit excuse… “To prevent mass email abuse, we have not emailed customer to give advanced noticed of the move”. Yeah, sure! Several attempts to make the changes led me to seek ticketed support which was always “half done”, leading to mistakes upon mistakes. So I’ve moved to WordPress where there seems to be much greater customer focus because….. “the customer is always right” (not wrong).
That managed to waste, if you like a few hours. So although Saturday was good in addressing a case of “Weekend Anxiety”, today wasn’t so good. Part of my “work on myself” for the year will be to accept that it’s okay to waste some time on the weekends when my work life is already quite busy. (The tune of Cats in Cradle springs to mind).
If only my social life could be as measured and metred as my work life. Some weekends I don’t have all that much organised, and others I’m so busy I could hardly scratch myself. Take the weekends of February 17 and 18, when I have four social invitations on the Sunday alone. It doesn’t rain, it pours. In all likelihood, I’ll get to only three, since I have to work (of sorts) on the Sunday morning. Still life’s like that, and in the meantime, I must repeat to myself, “I must overcome weekends anxiety”.
Friday Night in Lismore
As you walk around the main block in Lismore, you can hardly walk fifty metres without seeing another grouping of hand-printed signs stuck to empty shop windows. These signs promote everything from bands playing and theatre productions, to natural health workshops, and (increasingly) signs from businesses looking for staff or saying they can’t open due to staff shortages. It’s like in the early days of COVID, except the staff shortages now are because people have moved away, after last year’s catastrophic flood.
Earlier this week I wrote a post describing the sadness I was feeling about the apparent “lack of progress” in the city’s recovery. When I went to the supermarket on Monday, there weren’t a lot of people around town, and no one seemed all that happy. By Friday night, things had brightened up a little, with reasonable crowds at some of the city’s pubs.
It was also great this week to experience a “micro school reunion” with my bestie from high school . The last time Louise and I were in Lismore at the same time was for our school reunion in 2004. As it’s forty years since we finished at Richmond River High School, we resolved this week to hold a proper reunion on the October Long-Weekend. In the days since I’ve been calling it at a number of bars to find a suitable venue, or at least that’s my excuse.
Hand Sanitiser
I’ve become somewhat fascinated lately about the way in which people apply hand sanitiser. It’s everywhere you go, from the supermarket to the pub. As I’ve observed others, it seems to me there’s two types of user. There’s the get it on, rub your hands about a bit kind of user. A bit like when men go to a public toilet! And there’s the slow, rub it in like it’s hand-moisturiser kind of user. Have I missed anyone?
Personally, I’m not one for applying publicly available hand sanitiser. Even though it’s “sanitiser”, I figure it’s best not to use the same sanitiser bottle that someone else has used. Gross!
As I’ve been to supermarkets and pubs (my two favourite establishments), I’ve noticed people have become less strict about “social distancing”. People seem less-inclined to stand on the spots on the floor.
Last Friday night, a friend and I went out for dinner, and it seemed like the restaurant we went to had the same number of patrons as normal. As we looked around the room and counted, we noticed they had just as many as they were licensed for. It was wonderful to catch up with my friend. She’s been avoiding social contact lately, as she has been living with breast cancer for the last two years. In fact, it was two years to the day since she was first diagnosed. Though we’ve caught up with video conferences, she’s only just begun to get out and about. She joined friends at a restaurant last weekend, and we caught up for an awesome meal (and a couple of bottles of wine), and great conversation.
I’m still enjoying working from home. In fact, in the last few days I’ve come to realise I PREFER working from home. At first, the blurred line between work and home life bothered me. The early advice was that you should stick to your working hours, and have clearly defined limits between the so-called 9-5 hours of work and the rest of your life. In reality, my job has never been like that. I’ve always done a fair bit of unpaid over-time. Over the last few months, however, I’ve been able to manage things much better. I really like to get up early and do a few hours, and then take a mid-morning break for a coffee, and a walk around the neighbourhood. Later in the morning, I’ve returned to work and have sometimes had meetings where I’ve also been able to do some lunch preparation. Before the meeting you put something on the stove, move your computer to the kitchen, and you can keep an eye on things, occasionally stirring the pot (both literally, and sometimes in the meeting too!!).
Over the last few months I’ve continued to take “work free Wednesday”. As mentioned previously, I’ve had some excess leave which I’ve been reducing on a weekly basis. In reality, I’ve continued to do some work meetings on Wednesday, as there hasn’t been much else to do. But now that shops and galleries have re-opened, I’m going to become a little more determined to have my “leave day” as an “actual leave day”, and not allow the two to blur.
I’m most looking forward to taking a few days off in a couple of weeks time to visit my family on the North Coast. There was a a Jet-star offer a couple of weeks ago which allowed me to snap up a $70 return flight, so of course I bought a ticket. In my family we have a fair few older people who I’ll be seeing, and we also have a new pregnancy, so I’ll be wanting to make sure I’m as healthy as possible, so will grab a COVID-19 test to protect them. Though I feel healthy, I participated in last weekend’s #blacklivesmatter rally, so I figure I should get tested to make sure my family will be okay.
Oh, and of course, I could use hand sanitiser, too, shouldn’t I?