As I strolled through the main park in Lismore’s center, I noticed a group of men gathered in the bandstand. Suddenly, one of them shouted out, “Hey brother, be careful of the magpie!” Being someone who grew up with fair hair, I knew all too well about the danger of magpies during this time of year. It seemed like a cruel twist of fate that magpies would always choose to nest in the trees surrounding both my primary school in South Lismore and my high school in Richmond River. After the man shouted his warning, another chimed in, “He’s already gone after three other bald guys today.” We all shared a laugh.
Wilson’s River at LismoreLawn Bowls Club, LismoreQueen Victoria 60 years fountain at Lismore
The decision to cross the old railway bridge between North and South Lismore was far riskier than any encounter with a magpie. Despite having crossed it safely numerous times as a child, I realized it may not have been the wisest choice as an adult. However, I couldn’t resist the nostalgia of my childhood memories, as several family members had worked for the railways, and I had accompanied them on many trips over the bridge to check the tracks between Lismore and Bexhill. Unfortunately, those were the days when trains regularly passed through Lismore, and the old bridge was not as well-maintained as it used to be.
Railway Bridge crossing the Wilson’s River at Lismore
It had been over a decade, perhaps even longer, since the last train had passed through Lismore. Feeling confident, I decided to walk across the old railway bridge. However, I had not anticipated the missing sleepers that appeared halfway across, which made my crossing far more tentative and nerve-wracking than I had expected. It was only after finally making it to the other side that I breathed a sigh of relief. As a word of caution to children, I must stress that attempting to cross the bridge as I did is a foolish and dangerous decision. Please, do not follow in my footsteps.
I never quite understood the significance of this piece of public art until today. With Lismore’s history of flooding, it’s presumably Noah’s Ark.One of Lismore’s most famous sons is Adam Gilchrist. I see he was back in town this week for book signings.
I am currently visiting my family for the weekend, and as many of them are significantly older than I am, I thought it would be a good idea to take a walk while they retired for an afternoon nap. I managed to complete my daily goal of taking 10,000 steps, and then some, by strolling through North Lismore, South Lismore, and the CBD.
“You really must come back to Sweden in the spring or summer”, I wrote to my friend Sue yesterday, attaching a bunch of photographs from my morning walk around Djurgården. Sue came with me to Sweden four years ago, in March, when there was still a lot of snow and ice around. In contrast, the weather is now warm and summer-like.
It was walking around Rosendals Trädgård that I thought of Sue, knowing how much she would really like it. Even though I’ve known about the restaurant/garden/farm for a number of years, I’ve never been here before. But on hearing a podcast last week, I was inspired to make a visit.
It’s not far from one of my favourite places in Stockholm, Waldemarsudde, a beautiful house, turned art gallery/museum which overlooks the water. It was reasonably busy when I visited, with groups of older women, and school-children dominating. With all the school groups around the city, you can tell it’s approaching end of term, with lots of school excursions underway. With the warm weather finally arriving in Stockholm, the gardens at Waldemarsudde are starting to look really beautiful.
I said daffodils, but I meant tulips.
Nearby at Rosendals, there are still lots of empty paddocks, though the compost heaps are tall, and the plants inside the greenhouses look healthy. The food in the cafe/restaurant is also very, very good. Visiting these two wonderful places was a terrific start to the day. And in keeping with the whole theme of the morning around food, I actually saw someone foraging in the nearby forest. It was fascinating to watch her, as she wandered, taking some leaves from a plant, pulling a root vegetable from the ground etc.
Later in the afternoon, I took a walk around Årsta. Though it was my intention to go for an afternoon swim at Erikdalsbadet, I couldn’t be arsed, preferring instead to walk around, enjoy the views and enjoy the sunshine. With the warmer weather, I swear almost everyone in Stockholm must have taken a “sickie” yesterday, as there were people absolutely everywhere.
Finally, at about 4.00pm, I called in to Loopen, a waterfront bar I’ve been to on several occasions, and like very much. Half-way through a glass of rosé, I received a call from Sandra, saying that she and Robert had found a lovely spot in a nearby park, and asked if I wanted to join them. “See you in five”, I told her.
In the evening, we also caught up to see a musician friend of hers perform some fairly avante garde electronica which I enjoyed very much.
Late sping, early summer, whatever you want to call it, it feels good.
Jenene Nazareth knows she can achieve anything others can even if she takes a different path. Born in Melbourne to Sri Lankan parents who had only been living in Australia for three years, Jenene’s arrival with a limb difference came as a massive shock. In Sri Lanka at that time, Jenene says disability was not viewed positively or accepted widely.
Despite the unknown and their heavy reliance on doctors and specialists, Jenene feels her parents adapted remarkably well.
“I was brought up in very much… give it a go (environment). And if you can’t do it, come and ask for help. We’ll come and help you. But you give it a go first.”
Growing up, Jenene says she was always conscious of her difference in a world not inherently designed for people with limb differences. Though naturally right-handed, she adapted to life, though she says she still subconsciously prefers carrying items on her right side.
Her daily life involved unique adaptations, like thinking “four steps ahead” at the gym or subconsciously hiding her arm in photos before she caught onto the habit.
Jenene as a child. Pic supplied by Jenene.
Navigating Identity, Childhood, and Social Stigmas
Her first interaction with other children with limb differences happened at a children’s hospital Christmas party. Being introduced to a community of kids with similar differences was a revelation:
“There are so many of us. Where did we all come from? Why have I never met these people before?”
In stark contrast, she also encountered environments where hand differences were kept “very hush-hush,” with people hiding their hands in handbags.
She credits her positive early exposure with shaping her resilient outlook.
During her teenage years, body consciousness crept in. Dating and fitting in presented real hurdles. She recalls the vulnerability of wondering if her arm would stop her from finding someone or if she was embarrassing to others.
Even in traditional Sri Lankan dancing, she says she once faced exclusion by being moved to the back corner because she looked different. Yet, these hurdles taught her a vital lesson:
“There will be people who are open to who you are and looking past it and there are people that won’t be. And it’s… not people that you need in your life.”
She emphasizes the importance of standing up for oneself, knowing one’s worth, and finding supportive people, many of whom remain her closest friends today, even forgetting she has one hand.
Career, Relationships, and Rejection of Traditional Prosthetics
In her professional life, Jenene found that corporate desk jobs in marketing offered a stable, positive environment compared to retail. Retail work meant constant exposure to staring crowds and children asking natural questions, which required immense daily emotional energy.
To break the ice during job interviews, and when asked if she has any needs or requirements to do the job she will often say:
“Unless this job requires my peeling a potato, I’ll be perfectly fine.”
While using dating apps in her twenties, she says subtle adaptations remained, like how much of her hand to reveal in her porfile and instinctively ordering pasta on a first date to avoid the awkwardness of cutting food with one hand.
She ultimately met her husband online. When they met in person in London, she says he only noticed her arm afterward, reacting with complete acceptance.
When it comes to prosthetics, Jenene shares a common sentiment with many in the limb difference community: she spent her youth hating them. Given prosthetics by the children’s hospital up until age seventeen, she would take them off within ten minutes.
Today, she only uses a gym-specific prosthetic to balance muscle asymmetry and prevent shoulder and neck pain, otherwise finding traditional daily wear bulky, claustrophobic, and spatially disorienting.
Mentoring the Next Generation and Advice for the Community
After years of building an independent life, travelling the world, buying a house, getting married, and establishing her career, Jenene realized she had valuable knowledge to share.
Encouraged by her husband, she started an Instagram account to provide practical tips and inspiration for parents and children navigating limb differences.
Jenene offers clear, invaluable advice for anyone growing up with a limb difference or raising a child with one:
Never hide or be ashamed: Jenene stresses that a limb difference is not a negative or something to pretend doesn’t exist, noting, “It’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s not something to hide. It’s not a negative.”
Foster independence early: She advises parents to always give children the opportunity to try things first on their own. Letting them ask for help when needed builds genuine self-belief. As she notes, “If you have faith in them, they will have faith in themselves.”
Embrace different ways of doing things: Doing something differently does not mean doing it wrong. Children should be allowed to find their own path without parents placing artificial limitations on them.
Maintain a positive internal dialogue: Ultimately, Jenene advises that mindset is everything. She shares:
“It’s all about how you see yourself, and how you speak to yourself… you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want to do it.”
Pic supplied by Jenene
This article is based on a conversation with Jenene, which will be featured in The Limb Shift, a podcast launching in October 2026. You can find it on Spotify, Apple podcasts and YouTube.
Jenene is an Ambassador for The Aussie Hands Foundation Inc. which is a voluntary, not-for-profit Australian organisation dedicated to supporting children and adults who have been born with a hand difference or have sustained an acquired hand injury.
I’ve just arrived home from a pub crawl in Stockholm and, to be honest, I’m quite sober. If I had been a bit pissed, that might have helped explain why I’ve ended up in Alvsjo. In Sydney terms, I guess you might say Alvsjo is like Homebush. There’s not a lot here, aside from where the Stockholm International Fair was held and some associated hotel accommodation. By train it’s about 15 minutes from the centre of Stockholm. I’m staying in a budget motel in a very small room which I booked and paid for several months ago. As a room, it’s not so bad, though it is small, and the email confirmation did say “no facilities”. And yet I have a television, wireless internet, a clean modern room, and the bathroom isn’t too far away. Unfortunately, it cost me about $40 to get home in the cab tonight, which is something I didn’t really figure into the equation. But it was a nice enough trip and the cab driver was fine. You live and learn, I guess.
It’s been a reasonably good day also. After waking, showering and doing all of the usual holiday things, I actually did something work-related today. I caught up for lunch with a friend of a colleague in Sydney who also works in radio. We talked about radio around the world, the similarities, the differences and all of those nerdy kind of things. Still, what would you expect of two similarly aged blokes who have been interested in and working in radio since their teenage years?
Later, I checked into my accommodation in Alvsjo and then had a shower and a rest before heading back into town. Catching the train was an assortment of people including a fair number of people wearing the Europride bands around their wrists. It’s a funny sight to see so many people wearing them, and people responding so well. A mate of mine commented tonight that in London you’d be bashed for wearing one, whereas here they say, “Welcome to Stockholm”.
I went into town tonight with no firm intention in mind, except that I thought I should be home by midnight. A friend of a mate from Canberra arrives in Stockholm today and we’re gonna catch up mid-morning. So I had this idea I should be sensible, pop into town only briefly, and then come back home for a good night’s sleep.
As it was, I headed towards my favourite bar since arriving, Torget, for a quick white wine, with the intention of seeing Lady Miss Keir (the former lead singer of Dee Lite which had the hit, “Groove Is In The Heart”) play Europride. I never quite made it, though, running into my mate Paul, and his friends from London and Glasgow.
“Feel like joining us for a bite to eat”?, I was asked, and then if I had any preferences. “Swedish food”, I replied, adding to my thesis that Sweden doesn’t really do “ethnic cuisine” all that well. One of the blokes then added a story about going into a Chinese restaurant in his native Germany and being served what SOUNDED like a really interesting meal, but which turned out to be chicken schnitzel with sweet and sour sauce. So we ended up having a bit to eat at a place in Galma Stan. While the others had meat balls, I went for the salmon which was excellent.
And so we then went looking for a bit of Stockholm nightlife. One of the blokes had the idea of seeing what a guide book had described as Sweden’s best “schlager band”. Anyway, we went to the bar, had a few beers and a dance, and, after finally deciding we wouldn’t have gone to this bar anywhere else in the world, went looking for somewhere else. You just know you’re in the wrong bar when there’s a queue of about 50 blokes waiting to get in and 4 women, and the blokes have to wait outside while the women are given quick entry. And then of course, you know you’re in a dodgy place when you walk outside and there’s a woman on horseback.
Älvsjö – harder to pronounce than you might imagine.
Not much happens at Älvsjö
Glory days of the Blue Moon
We left the Blue Moon Bar just as the woman on horseback arrived.
Two lesbians and their Europoodle at Stockholm’s Central Station
Having a drink at my favourite bar in Stockholm, Torget at Gamla Stan
The bottom line is we wandered around and around from bar to bar in an endless search, didn’t drink all that much, and then, at about 1.30 gave up, deciding it was all just a bad joke. Not long before this, one of the blokes made his position clear, “I don’t care if I don’t see Alcazar and BWO. I want to go to Lino tomorrow night and I don’t want to queue”. The advice was heeded all ’round.
And then of course, we noticed the bloody train station was closed, thus forcing us into cabs.
Still, we saw a pretty funny poodle at Central Station.
AND we had a great night, and it was loads of fun just to hang out with a really nice bunch of people.
Just in case you were previously unsure, I now have the badge to prove it. On entering Tallinn’s grooviest nightclub, Angel, tonight the woman on the door offered me a bidge. Initially, I declined the offer, thinking she was trying to sell me something. On closer inspection, the whole room was full of people wearing badges declaring their sexuality.
Looking around the room it was fascinating to see how people were defining themselves. The hip-hop dancers on stage had badges declaring themselves “bi”. Two blokes at the bar had badges declaring themselves “hetero”. Quite a few, though not as many as I’d hoped, had badges declaring themselves “gay”. And finally, there were lots of people declaring themselves “bi”.
For just a moment I was standing next to a bloke wearing a “bi” badge. He was a nice looking bloke, dark blonde, a bit nerdy, about 30 years old, but pretty gay looking if you ask me. Obviously it must have caught the attention of someone else nearby who leaned over and began to speak to him. I’m guessing by the body language he asked about the “bi” definition. At that point the bloke pulled out his mobile phone and showed a photograph of a baby. Question answered…
Unfortunately the pop star who appeared and sang half a dozen songs wasn’t wearing a badge. Judging by the reaction of the crowd, he must have been quite a popular local singer. With blonde hair and boy next door good looks, he sang a bunch of Euro-pop songs which wouldn’t have been out of place in the Estonian finals for Eurovision. I doubt they’d have made the final cut, but they were fine enough I suppose. The audience loved him. Even though I listened closely, I couldn’t quite pick up the local version of “one more time” but that’s what they shouted until he came out and did just what they asked.
After resting up, I’m feeling much better today. I think I’ve kicked the forty-eight hour bug that’s made me a little tired and congested. Still, I haven’t done all that much. I did some sight-seeing, did some shopping and I went for a swim.
The sightseeing was unguided. I just went for a bit of a wander, checking out some of the inner city neighbourhoods. You’ve got everything from Soviet style apartments, to modern apartments, to run down buildings, to beautifully restored German style housing. Quite nice.
I was in dire need of some new toothpaste and deodorant, as I pretty much ran out two days ago and have been doing the big squeeze on both. I was hoping that I could find a local variation, something a little exotic. Unfortunately, the supermarket didn’t stock a local variation, so I’ve ended up with Colgate toothpaste and Nivea deodorant. I was also in need of some underpants, since I seem to have lost a couple of pair along the way. I’ve found a local variation of those, though I’m far too modest to show them here.
The swim today was quite good at the “Pirita Top Spa” just a few kilometres from town. Along with the swim I had a massage which I suspect also helped make me feel a little better. The woman who did the massage was also straight out of Eastern European Central Casting. She was big and blonde.
Although I managed to get lost a few times today, I think I’m starting to get the hang of the place. I’m starting to develop a sense of direction.
Still, I’ve made plans for the next part of my journey. I’m gonna leave on Monday for Riga. It’s twice the size of Tallinn and, apparently, is very nice. And from there, I have a flight from Riga to Prague. So by Thursday lunchtime, I’ll be in the city described by a few of my friends as “the most beautiful city in the world”.
In the meantime, I remembered yesterday that I have two previous connections with Estonia. The parents of my much-loved high school form mistress were Estonian, as were the grandparents of a former colleague. I wrote her an email today, to which she replied…
Have fun and remember when peopel say Tervi-sex.. they are actually saying cheers.
I listened to a really fantastic podcast tonight from Radio National’s Hindsight: a podcast which concerned three of my favourite subjects: history, Sweden and sex. The program was made by Johan Gabrielsson, a journalist who lives in Sydney and presents the Swedish program on SBS. He’s married to an Australian woman, and with a son approaching puberty, has been considering his own sex education growing up in Sweden, and how that compares with sex education in Australia. Since his son is growing up in a different age, this program goes back in history, reflecting on sex education in Australia and Sweden back in the 1970s/early 1980s.
Kärlekens språk
As I’m of a similar age, it was an interesting program to listen to. Johan talks about his own experiences of watching sex education films and an open-ness about his sexuality and compares that with his neighbour, Steve Kilby. Steve is the former (current?) lead-singer of The Church who grew up in Sydney, and around Wollongong, but who has also spent a fair bit of time in Sweden over the last ten years (what an interesting co-incidence). Steve’s accounts of learning about sex are reasonably similar to my own, though I never did go to a the much-advertised “father son” nights of the 1970s. The program comes to no specific conclusions about whether one country was better or worse when it comes to sex education: the program just concludes they were just different.
On the program’s website, there are a few added bonuses, including my Swedish teacher, Marianne Eckerstrom-Fancelli talking about attitudes towards sexuality in Sweden during her upbringing, as a woman now in her 60s. “We get more concerned about taxes than we do about nudity” she says, or words to that effect.
Gilbert and George, as featured on ABC1 Australia
It was an interesting program, which I enjoyed very much. And interesting because I’d just watched Virginia Trioli’s interview with Gilbert and George, the English artists who are quite well known for the reasonably strong sexual imagery in their work.I think I first discovered their work in my late teens, early 20s. It was part of my own sexual discovery I guess, as their work often dealt with homosexuality. Although I like their work very much, I wasn’t left with much connection with them as people to be honest. I thought they came across as quite contrived, rehearsed, and probably lacking in any genuine humanity. They appeared to have thought quite deeply about their work, and had a smart answer for every question, and they clearly had strong views about a range of issues, but they never really went beyond the headspace. There was one occasion when they spoke about growing up as “common folk” from the country which showed a bit of humanity (and which I related to), but they never seemed to willing to show a bit of emotion/feeling/honesty.
Perhaps this is because they come across as a pair of co-dependant freaks? Is this judging too harshly? Virginia tried to get them to open up with some honesty when she asked a question in response to Gilbert’s assertion that “more sodomy is committed on women than men”. In essence, VT asked the question “how would you know?’. And for just a moment, Gilbert kind of laughed in recognition. But then they returned quickly to their personas. I get the concept of people and performance as art, and how they should stay “in character” but I was also a little disappointed they didn’t show us a little of themselves outside character.
Pet Shop Boys and Liza as featured on ABC 2
I ended off the evening watching a little of The Pet Shop Boys special from Sunday night on ABC 2 which was very good. Neil and Chris are a bit like Gilbert and George in a way. Chris never lets the guard down much either which is a shame. For a nation that’s reasonably “reserved”, perhaps that’s why I like the Swedes so much. They seem a little more willing to, occasionally, let their guard down, unlike the rather uptight British Isles ancestry which I’m descended from.
