“So after being here on and off for three weeks what do you think of Hobart?”, Damien asked me as we dined last night on some delicious Japanese food last. He caught me by surprise, as I didn’t really have a ready answer, aside from “I think I really like it”. It was one of those “non-answers” in some respects.
Yes, I’ve been here for a reasonable length of time, and yes, I’ve been staying in AirBnB accommodation (not a hotel), and yes, I’ve been mostly working (tourism came second), I had a break in the middle to return to Sydney. Oh, and the weather has been unusually warm. So yeah, I really like Hobart, but I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface.
For the past few days, I’ve been staying in North Hobart. If you were to declare somewhere “peak hipster”, I think I’ve won “bingo”, because I’ve been staying in an apartment above a funky hairdressing salon, a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, and a cat cafe. With a bus stop out the front that got me to work in about 15 minutes and lots of wonderful restaurants close by, I feel like I’ve been living in the Hobart equivalent to where I live in Sydney. So in many ways, it’s felt “quite normal”. Hence, my “non-answer” to Damien’s question.
The cat cafe is not far from where I’m staying.
As is common back in Sydney, I’ve gone to work come home, gone out for a meal or something to do, and just gotten on with my life. A couple of “out and about” highlights, however, have included going to a comedy night, and visiting Hobart’s only “gay bar”.
The highlight of the comedy night at the Polish Club was a performance by Ivan Aristgueta, originally from Venezuela, who based much of his routine on loving Australia but still missing his home country which he and his family left due to political strife.A couple of rather amusing moments happened at the gay bar, as a man came up to me, and asked me if I was from Sydney, recognising me as a patron from a pub where he works; and with someone else coming up to me, having recognised the shirt I was wearing, as being one he sold in the shop where he worked. Appropriately for the bar called Flamingos, it was a shirt featuring Flamingos.
Small world, eh? Or maybe that’s just Hobart, and why I like it. An excellent combination of the two “worlds” of my life: that of living in a big city like Sydney, as well as a series of smaller country towns in my earlier life. I doubt I’ll retire in Sydney (I don’t think I can afford it), and I doubt I’ll retire in a small country town (lacking some of the creature comforts of city-life I’ve become used to), so maybe it’s somewhere in between. Maybe it’s Newcastle? Maybe it’s Canberra? Could it be Hobart?
I’d arranged with Tony to meet up at Allsang pa Skansen, the regular summertime television program in Sweden focussed on community singing. Along with some Swedish “favourites” there’s usually a pop star or two with a show or concert to promote. This week it was Benny Andersson’s Orchestra and the cast of Mamma Mia. Benny, of course, is an absolute bloody legend and needs no explanation, while the English-language production of Mamma Mia opens in Stockholm in a couple of weeks time.
The weather today was shitty. Really shitty. So I figured I had two choices. Either find somewhere indoors, maybe back at the hostel, or head off to Skansen to try to find a good seat. I’d been told people arrive as early as 7.00am. I think that’s crazy myself, but some people do it. I figured since I had nothing to lose, I’d do my best to find a good seat.
I was also warned about the “crazy old Swedish ladies” who scream and shout if you get a better seat than them. I didn’t see any of those, though I did see quite a lot of people who I thought looked a little bit “dueling banjos” if you get my meaning.
Wearing my yellow berka, as I began to call it, I grabbed a seat behind a group of four (two men and two women) and a little old lady with no apparent signs of craziness. For a couple of hours I sat there with only my eyes peering through a slit watching the complete lack of action. It wasn’t too long, however, before I realised the people in front of me were actually ABBA fans. And not normal ones, like myself, but crazy ABBA fans.
A bit like some born again Christians, crazy ABBA fans get this weird glazed look in their eyes. From time to time this group kept looking back at me, suspiciously, trying to figure out who I was. “Did I have more autographs than them?” “Did I know Frida personally”? That kinda stuff. One of them said to me at one point, accusingly, “You came late. You weren’t here at nine o’clock this morning”. Weird stuff, eh?
The attraction, of course, was Benny Andersson from ABBA. Tonight’s program was all about Benny and ABBA.
I watched the soundcheck and the rehearsal. Hearing Helen Sjoholm sing “Du Ar Min Man” for the first time live was absolutely amazing. She has a really strong voice and sings with a great sense of drama. The second or third time was still good, but by the fourth I was getting a bit sick of it, to be honest. As she walked around in her raincoat, you could see she was quite cool, and had a bit of a sense of humour as she joked with a few people.
Benny also seemed quite nice during rehearsal. Politely stepping back to let people through. Chatting with everyone. Greeting the cast of Mamma Mia with a hug. He wore his raincoat, did what everyone else did, and there were no signs of any prima donna behaviour.
That said, you could just see how much in awe everyone was of him. Just mention the word Benny and the whole audience errupted into applause.
A young couple sat next to me for a while. At first I thought it was just she who was the ABBA fan, but clearly they both were. They were very grateful, by the way, that I had offered them to share my seat when so many others hadn’t. I suspect the fans in front may not have been so kind. Within minutes of sitting down, the young couple too, were singing along to some of the more obscure recordings of Benny Andersson’s Orchestra.
Rehearsal for Allsang pa Skansen
Helen Sjoholm and Benny Andersson in rehearsal at Allsang pa Skansen.
I was really surprised at how many people were there, and how many young people in particular. There were probably more people there this week in the rain than last week when it was sunny.
During the show itself, I moved away from the formal seating, as I was so incredibly cold and wet. Four hours in the Swedish rain was too much for a boy from Sydney.
So how did I feel about the experience of seeing Benny perform live? I find it a little hard to articulate actually. I enjoyed the performances. I also feel a sense of “completion” in some ways, that I’ve seen him in a live performance. Would I go to a BAO concert? Yes, though I wouldn’t fly to the other side of the world, especially.
And with a couple of ABBA songs sung in Swedish, it was a very interesting place to spend my final full day in Stockholm. It was a very “Swedish” moment being at Allsang tonight.
“So you’ve been stuck up here since June?”, a random bloke sitting on the bench outside the Station Hotel said to me earlier this week. “Not so much STUCK”, I replied, adding that “I’ve really been enjoying my time in Lismore”. After we exchanged a few pleasantries, I continued on my way home to Pat and Jack’s place.
“That sounds like Jodie’s dad”, Karran said to me last night. “A big guy, with a beard?” she asked, continuing with the description that eventually led me to believe it was in fact Jodie’s dad, who I think I met briefly at Nancy’s funeral.
Lismore is like that.
“Have you gotten used to people saying hello to you in the street?”, a friend’s mother asked, as we had lunch on Friday. “I was always prepared for that”, I told her,adding that “I wasn’t expecting the randomness of it all. There have been people I don’t know who’ve either said hello, or have wanted to have a conversation”.
It’s been nice.
Though I hadn’t planned to stay in Lismore for three and a half months, I’m glad I have. It kind feels like a “test drive” for retirement, I’ve concluded. There are, of course, things about Sydney I would miss by retiring in Lismore. But mostly, I think the positives will outweigh the negatives.
With the end of the lockdown in Lismore, and with the end of the lockdown in Sydney “within sight”, I decided I would take my chances and return home.
“This is my window, or else I might still be here at Christmas time”, I explained to Pat and Jack. With all of the news about COVID cases and COVID deaths in Sydney, they’re concerned. I’ve promised them to look after myself!
Flying from Ballina to Sydney
There weren’t a lot of people at Ballina Airport today. Though normally all of the airlines would have several flights each day, both Qantas and Virgin are down to about five flights each week, and I think Jetstar and REX have stopped completely. That’s why I caught an early flight today (9.25am), though I normally prefer afternoon flights.
“I used to work at Channel 7 for a while”, I heard one person say to another as we waited in the queue. The phrase immediately caught my ear, as the current lockdown in Byron Bay appears to be related to film-crew members who have relocated from Sydney for “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here”. They had also been on a Virgin Flight, and people on that flight from Sydney to Ballina were asked to get tested. Finger’s crossed this flight won’t be a repeat of that one.
The difference between Sydney when I left and arriving back now was immediately evident. There was hardly anyone at the airport, and almost all of the shops were closed. I walked out and got the first taxi in the row.
In Surry Hills, most of the shops are closed, except those providing food.
As they did last year, the local Italian restaurant has converted itself into an Italian supermarket.
Though everyone in the city today seemed to be wearing face-masks, that wasn’t the case in Surry Hills. I’d estimate it was down to about fifty percent on the streets.
After fourteen weeks away, I was half expecting it to be a bit of a “disaster” at home. There were a couple of dead bananas and carrots in the fridge, and there were a few jars with mould. All of my plants are dead, except two. I needed to reset a few devices with password changes. Thankfully the house hasn’t been taken over cockroaches or mice!
But most of all, lovely to see Biscuit (our collectively owned pussycat in our apartment block) is safe and sound.
Since arriving home in Lismore I’ve played an awful lot of Wii. I have nephew who is about six and we’ve been playing a range of games including ten pin bowling (which I’m quite good at) and that hammer throw game you can play at a sideshow (which I’m not so good at). As he has a much older teenage brother who is very much a teenager, I think he’s quite excited to have a playmate for a while. Truth be told, so am I, though I’m not entirely sure I’m happy with the avatar he constructed for me.
This is my Wii avatar
Also since arriving home I’ve been doing some washing. Feeling like a university student coming home for the weekend with a bag of dirty clothing, I was desperate for some clean socks and jocks. As usual, I left packing to the last minute, and found myself rushing around the house and rummaging through dirty clothing from the floordrobe.
Deciding what to pack was quite difficult. Normally at this time of year, Lismore is hot, humid and generally quite unpleasant. But rain is forecast for the next seven days, and there’s a good chance of further rain beyond that. In fact, chatting earlier today with a bloke I work with – he was also born and raised on the North Coast – I learned there’s something like a seventy-five percent chance of wet weather for every day of the next month. “I rang my brother” he told me, “and said we might give it (coming home for Christmas) a miss this year”.
So there was the weather to consider, and also that I’ve become the king of carry-on luggage. I HATE having to check luggage in and out. Instead, I like to print off my boarding pass before-hand and go straight through with a small carry on case. For this trip I’ve packed a couple of shirts, a couple of polos, a pair of shorts and a pair of jeans, some socks and some jocks. I’ve worn my blunnies, and I’ve packed my thongs. I’ve even managed to squeeze in a couple of Christmas presents, having removed the outer package.
But the clothes, of course, were all unwashed. My washing machine has been acting up lately and I’ve been going to the laundromat ahead of the purchase of a new machine (with delivery in the first week of January). So I came in, said hello to everyone, and almost immediately went straight to the back verandah and loaded up the washing machine.
The flight up was pretty good. I paid for the ticket a few months ago and got a reasonable deal. Doubly good, as I also scored a two out of three seat configuration in the premium economy section. In contrast, the woman next to me booked her flight just three weeks ago and paid a lot of money. It’s bloody expensive coming up at this time of the year. Everyone seems to have left Sydney already this year, heading for warmer, more pleasant climes such as the North and South coasts.
I’m lucky in that I have a job that can be done from virtually anywhere. So while I’m up here staying with my family, I’ll be going into work during the day from our local office here. Aside from face-to-face meetings I can do just about everything I need to so long as I have a phone and a computer. The revolution is here! Such a shame the bloody phone won’t stop ringing :)
“Life’s been just one big blur since Zach missed out on winning Big Brother”, I said to a friend yesterday, when they asked how I was. Of course I was joking, but I was nonetheless disappointed that Zach just missed out on winning BB, as he was my favourite character this year. And of course, as late as Monday night, Google was reporting my site as the #1 site for the phrase “Go Zach”.
That said, I also really liked the wild, whacky bogan from Perth, Michelle. I mean, I think she would have driven me to drink, had I lived in the same house as her, but I still liked her. And maybe the reason why was that she was similar, both physically and in personality, to a good friend of mine. “Hey have you been watching BB? There’s a woman on there who reminds me of you”, I said to my friend, to which she replied, “No way, how can you say that? Yeah, well, maybe just a bit”.
The BB finale was the highlight of my Monday night, possibly because it took up most of Monday night due to the delayed result.
The last few evenings have included a work-related dinner at a terrific restaurant called Ottomans at Dawes Point (great food, great location), a visit to the Lewisham Hotel last night, and tonight has just been a night at home watching television.
The next week is nowhere near as busy as the last one. There’s yum cha on Sunday, a couple of exhibitiony-arty things. I think the highlight will be going to Helpmann Awards on Monday night.
In the first half of 2026, I’ll be launching a new podcast called The Limb Shift—a series dedicated to the raw, complex, often surprising realities of limb loss and limb difference. It’s a project born from my own experience as an amputee, and from the countless conversations I’ve had with people whose lives have been reshaped—sometimes suddenly, sometimes by choice—through the loss of a limb.
What I’ve learned is this: no two stories are the same, but the emotional terrain is deeply shared.
🌱 What The Limb Shift Is About
This podcast isn’t just about prosthetics, surgeries, or rehabilitation—though those things matter. It’s about identity, resilience, grief, humour, frustration, and the strange, unexpected moments that define life after limb loss.
You’ll hear from people who have:
Rebuilt their sense of self after catastrophic illness
Faced the “why me” battle and learned to make peace with change
Navigated depression, fear, and the slow work of acceptance
Returned to work—or reinvented their careers entirely
Dealt with the practical realities of the NDIS, home modifications, and financial uncertainty
Discovered new physical limits… and then pushed past them
One guest describes realising they were still the same person—even after losing both hands and feet. Another talks about running up skyscrapers around the world on prosthetic legs, simply because no one had done it before. Others share quieter, more intimate moments: the shock of seeing blood on the carpet because they couldn’t feel their feet, or the weekend spent deciding whether to amputate a limb that no longer served them.
These stories are honest, vulnerable, and often unexpectedly funny. They’re also deeply practical. Many guests talk about the questions that hit hardest after amputation: How do I get back to work? What if I don’t qualify for the NDIS? Who can I turn to who actually understands?
Take three minutes and have a listen to some of the people who have shared their stories.
Sound design by Jacob Round
🎙️ Why I’m Making This Podcast
My own journey began with what should have been an ordinary beach walk. A small cut on my foot turned into sepsis, and within weeks I was unconscious and close to death. I woke to the news that my leg had been amputated late on a Friday night.
That moment changed everything—but it didn’t erase who I was.
And that’s the heart of The Limb Shift: the reminder that limb loss changes your life, but it doesn’t erase your identity. The people you’ll hear from have rebuilt, reimagined, and reclaimed their lives in ways that are powerful, messy, and deeply human.
It’s been a few years since I’ve travelled to Canberra for the Australian Of The Year Awards. The last time was, I think, 2010 (or thereabouts). Through my work, I have a close relationship with the team organising the awards, and was involved in setting up ABC Radio’s live coverage of the announcements.
Having helped set things up, I travelled down for the first year, and left it at that, knowing the team at ABC Canberra do an excellent job with it all. The weather was great this year, and I was really pleased to have travelled down, as I got to meet some terrific folk, hear about some of the amazing stories from the finalists and winners, and also enjoy the sounds of Jessica Mauboy, Paul Kelly (and others), and even got to catch up with an old school friend and her sister.
Have known her media advisor for over twenty years, formerly of Wagga, and then he worked for the ABC. The very tall Ben Roberts-Smith, a recent recipient of the very rare VC.Andrea Ho, Manager 666 ABC Canberra.
