Terania Creek 2

“It’s like an prison recreation yard in 1960s East Germany” was how the beer-garden at The Beresford Hotel was often described.

Even though, they’d spent a LOT of money on the renovation of the much loved Surry Hills pub, and for the most part had gotten it right, they really messed up the beer garden early in the piece. It was terribly modern and chic, I’m sure, but the painted grey concrete and the strange chairs where you sometimes found yourself sitting with your back to your friends wasn’t a particularly welcoming environment.

In the months since, they’ve made the space a little more friendly by changing the furniture and by covering The Berlin Wall with plants. There’s other little touches, like pot plants which have also made the place a far nicer environment for a Friday afternoon drink with a mate.

Although she lives in the Eastern Suburbs, she has actually booked into a Paddington motel for the weekend. The reason? “I haven’t slept for three or four nights” she told me of life without an air-conditioner in her top-floor apartment in Bondi. “I slept on the hallway floor the other night”, she added, “and thought about just sleeping on the bathroom floor, it’s so hot”.

This was her explanation why she (and a few other people she knows) have booked a hotel room for a few nights this weekend to escape the late 30 temperatures predicted. “Before I book, can you just confirm you have air conditioning and it works”, she told me she said to the hotel receptionist.

Anyway, after a few drinks, we moved on for dinner at another refurbished pub, “The Local” or “The Tap House” depending on what you want to call it. My friend had worked there many years ago, and I’d enjoyed a few meals there previously, so concluded fairly early in the night it was the perfect place for dinner. I had the pork belly which was excellent. My friend had the mussels. They were also good.

The renovation process is also underway at “The Local”. They’ve also done a nice job to date on their renovation which combines large spaces with small, intimate rooms. “It’s very Melbourne”, we both concluded.

They also recently opened their rooftop bar, which has transformed a largely empty unfriendly barren space into something quite friendly and nice (in contrast to The Beresford which had done the complete opposite).

It’s the kind of bar where you can easily find yourself chatting to the people next to you, which we did. “Do you know where we can get any coke?”, one of the women asked us very early in the conversation. I wanted to say, “I think there’s a convenience store at the servo down the road”, but then quickly realised that was a pretty lame joke. They were a group of friends who had met in Byron Bay and who were in Sydney for a “big party weekend”.

“The last time we were here, we were homeless for a night”, one of the women told us. “The reception rang us several times asking us to keep the noise down, so we put the ironing board against the door until the police came and evicted us”, she added. She was a great story-teller, eh? With just that one sentence I had a strong image in my mind and a great sense of sympathy for the staff of the hotel where they were staying. My friend and I looked at each other with a smile concluding tomorrow was going to get very messy for this group.

“We’re going to The Taxi Club, you wanna come with us”? they asked us at one point. Twenty years ago we might have said yes… but now in our 40s… we’re both much more sensible, which is why, long before midnight, my friend went back to the air-conditioned comfort of her hotel, and I’m back at home.

My mailbox was full and so was my inbox. As I waded through two weeks of correspondence at work today, I was pleased to see something unrelated to work: a package from Sweden. It was a t-shirt I’d ordered online a few weeks ago from QX, the Swedish gay site. The t-shirt says “fantasiens jättebin… & verklighetens kupa”.

A bit of Googling reveals the phrase comes from the book “Gösta Berlings saga” by Selma Lagerlöf. Selma was a Swedish author who was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was also quite a well known feminist, peace activist and lesbian, which may explain why the t-shirt was being sold through QX. I’ve read a few articles about her tonight and she sounds amazing. The book itself is based on a real life story of a priest dismissed from his position due to alcoholism. The complete text from the book is “Här ha nu fantasiens jättebin svärmat omkring oss under år och dag, men hur de ska komma i in verklighetens kupa, det få de sannerlingen se sig om”. It’s probably a little too poetic for my more literal Swedish language skills, which translates this as something about giant bees of a fantasy year and the reality of a hive. I’d appreciate any assistance on this from a native speaker. Deep down, I suspect I may have bought a t-shirt which says the Swedish equivalent of “dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians”.

Anyway, I bought it because I’m going to see Swedish pop singers Robyn and Therese play separate gigs in Sydney in a few weeks time, and I wanted something new and Swedish to wear. I’m either going to be really cool, or more likely, look like a fat bald middle-aged try-hard. Oh, and in case you’re wondering not all Swedish pop stars are referred to only by their first names :)

It was a bright spot in an otherwise challenging day. Coming back to work after a holiday is always a bit of a challenge, isn’t it? You stay in bed for as long as you possibly can, get to work exactly on time (not early, not late). And in my case, I went in casual clothing today, not a suit, preferring to wear some of the clothing I’d bought in Beijing. It’s about making the holiday last that little bit longer.

And then, of course, the reality is you have to actually work. Outrageous! And then you have the challenge of having been out of the loop for some important conversations and sometimes you can find yourself all afloat. Thankfully everyone recognises that, and you’re always given a day of grace. Besides, everyone wants to know about your trip. My two take home messages for everyone today were: undeniably, consistently the best food I’ve ever had on holiday; and The Great Wall of China is bloody amazing. It was especially fun showing some photographs to a colleague who worked in Beijing during the Olympic Games of the Olympic Stadium. My advice to you? Go, go to Beijing. Go now before it turns into New York.