Strawberry Fields forever

I arrived at work this morning to find an inexplicable pile of avocados on my desk. Also on my desk, a present from our department's middle manager. I brought all of these things home. This brings the Christmas 2010 grand present total to a staggering....THREE. Oh well, at least I have a lot of avocados. Yum.

What HAS HAPPENED? It has been a long time since I last blogged. Oh, Mark's parents came to visit! We had a week up in Port Stephens around 3 hours drive from Sydney on the north coast of New South Wales, a week of perfect weather sandwiched in between days of heavy rain. Lady Luck smiled upon us.

We rented a little flat for the week in Nelson Bay and spent the first couple of days lazing around on the beach at the bottom of the road and buying mangos from the market. Around the third day, we caught the ferry over the bay to Tea Gardens and Hawk's Nest, watched dolphins play in the river and found the beautiful Jimmy's Beach.



We drove for a day to the Hunter Valley and visited some beautiful vineyards - wine tasted at Vinden Estates out in the most perfect courtyard with the most perfect view.



Also visited the well-known Tyrrell's wines and went on a very enjoyable and informative tour of their wine-making facilities.



There were so many big barrels!

A long drive home (and a dead kangaroo :( ) later, we refreshed ourselves with a good nights sleep ready for a hike up to Tomaree Head, which gave amazing views out over the ocean on one side, Shoal Bay on another and over the little ocean beaches of Zenith, Wreck and Box on the third.





One of my favourite things was our visit to see the sand dunes at Stockton Beach. At around 32km long and 1km wide they are one of the largest mobile sand masses in the world and are fascinating, desolate and desertlike, especially considering we visited on a savagely hot day.





It was kind of an odd pilgrimage as I have this fascination with sand dunes and their mythology. In my mind they are just places where everything is very hot and very absurd. I guess I have read too much Kobo Abe. But my goodness I loved that novel.

Weather

The weather has gone crazy. That hail storm actually happened. *shakes head in disbelief* Global warming? I think it's just global bizarre combustion of all sense and reason.

Melbs

My holidays are now complete. I think I went on 3 holidays in 5 weeks, which is rather decadent.

Holiday #2 involved a long weekend in Melbourne. Mark had been there all week, bumbling around at Melbourne Uni being philosophical and drinking coffee and wine and the rest of the time lounging around in a suite in a 4 star hotel. Oh the life of a philosopher.

I arrived on Friday via the aeroplane at around 10pm. Mark came to fetch me from the bus station and we caught the lovely tram up to Fitzroy to drink some wine and eat some late night desserts with some philosophy persons, before returning to the city and undertaking a lengthy slumber in the world's most comfortable bed.

Saturday it rained. And rained. And rained. And rained a bit more. We caught the trambulator to North Melbourne to a lovely cafe called the Auction Rooms and ate a wonderful brunch, accompanied by fresh juices and several coffees, giving us an excuse to sit there for almost 3 hours watching the rain fall outside. Not sure what to do, we ended up just heading back to the hotel and lying around for a bit, before heading back out on the tram back to Fitzroy to be our old friends Sam and Georgina's first ever houseguests in their new Melbourne flat!!! After a long stay working in NZ followed by several months travelling in South East Asia, they decided to move to Australia after visiting us in Sydney back in 2009. They had only been in the flat a few days and only had a mattress, 2 bar stools and an old TV to their names, but they also had a kitchen with wine so we had a bottle and talked about moving to Australia, moving to the UK, travelling.... It made me sad in a way that they are just arrived here and have a whole new life of fun to look forward to, while we are on our way out....I'm also sad that they are now in Australia just as we are leaving, so we won't get to hang out....the next time we see them will be at when they come back for their own wedding in the UK next July!

We walked out in the pouring rain over to the Veggie Bar and had a grand old meal and more and more wine before it was time to head to bed.

Sunday saw a slightly nicer day.



On the tram. Like the last time we went to Melbs, this time again I got so excited by the tram and took about 7386249372847 photos of the tram and us trambulating on it from inside and out. I have also used the word 'trambulating' so much now I think it might become a real word.

We went to Seven Seeds on Sunday for lunch - delicious toasted sandwiches and even more delicious coffee. We headed on down to the National Gallery of Victoria and had a little wander round, then back up to Brunswick Street for shopping and cafes. Sunday night was spent with Malaysian food and cocktails - we went back to Double Happiness, the bar we had been at on our last visit to Melbourne. It was brilliant.



I had a lychee based cocktail. Then we went over to our other favourite, the rooftop bar at Cookie and drank Kir Royale whilst gazing over the bright lights of Melbourne's CBD.

Monday we checked out of the hotel and went to the National Library of Victoria to print out boarding passes for the flight home. It's a pretty impressive place inside, all domed roofs and old books.

We were thinking about going up the Eureka Tower to the Skydeck on the 88th floor, the highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere, but weren't sure as it was pretty expensive and the weather was still a bit grey. In the end though, we thought we'd go down there and have a look.



We decided to go up and it was so worth it! Seeing the city from so high up is really great. I didn't realise the sea was so close either, I thought Melbourne was inland, but you could see St Kilda and the coast really close by. It's also a lot higher than the Sydney tower so you get more of a sense of looking down rather than just out. Mark was clinging to the walls at first but he soon got used to it!



That's the view over the CBD.

From there we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and make our way to the airport, where I proceeded to go mad for 2 hours as I had finished my Agatha Christie the day before (it was too exciting) and had literally nothing to do, until Mark went and bought me a newspaper to make me quieten down. Haha.

"The sun is but a tale; a children's story..."

So yeah the Lady of the Green Kirtle may as well have been talking about Sydney when she said that, because the sun does seem like a bit of a long forgotten myth here at the moment. I am completely and utterly convinced by the very real existence of RAIN though.

All week, huddled under my umbrella as I scurry through Hyde Park on my way to work, scarf bundled up, hoodie zipped up tight i have to remind myself that it is November and I must not lose hope that soon it will be a little bit warmer and (PLEASE) a little bit dryer. It is so hard to dislike the rain in Australia as we should be grateful for any that comes, but being positive about it is becoming harder and harder. I think it's just training us up for our return to the UK.....

Fortunately, while last weekend rained on Sydney, we were down in (moderately) dry Canberra for a little trip. Mark had been working all week at Australian National University and so I spent 3 and a half hours on a bus last Friday night to join him. The bus was a very comfortable Murrays bus though, and this coupled with the bargain $25 fare made it rather more agreeable than you might imagine 3.5 hours on a bus to be.
I arrived off the bus into Canberra Civic at around 9.30pm and Mark was waiting at the bus stop to whisk me off for dinner at an Indian restaurant called Delhi 6 with some ANU Philosophy types. The food was delicious - something Sydney really lacks is really good Indian food (something we are also looking forward to getting back in the UK again). And it was good to meet some new Philosophy faces as well as some old favourites! After the meal, we went to a cool pub called The Phoenix, it was like a proper English rock/indie pub. Had some beers then realised it was really late so walked back to Mark's room on campus to sleep.

Saturday morning brought a long lie in, before heading out for brunch at the cafe in the National Film Archive. We then took a wander so I could see some Canberra...what an odd place. It's so rural, feels a bit like being on a big spread out business park, dual carriageways connecting everything, not very pedestrian friendly at all! There are two centres on each side of Lake Burley Griffin - Civic on one side and the Parliamentary centre on the other. ANU is next to Civic, so we walked over the lake on the big road bridge into the Parliamentary zone.



It was a horrible, grey, hot sticky day, really uncomfortable for walking. The view of Black Mountain was nice, but odd when you look at that photo and remember that that is technically the view from the middle of a city! It's so rural!

You can find most of the sights along one edge of one of the circuit roads on the Parliamentary side. We walked past the big imposing National Library and along past Questacon science museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the High Court and finally the National Gallery of Australia. The weather was pretty unbearable now so we decided to have a look in.



Sculpture outside the National Gallery

After a refreshing ginger beer in the cafe, the gallery turned out to be quite excellent, with a very comprehensive collection of Australian art including some very famous works such as Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly series which I love. We had a good look round - I love some of the early european style Australian paintings - the pastoral scenes of areas that are now built up towns and suburbs - it's interesting to see such a change over the course of a century. It's also very revealing to compare early depictions of Sydney and Melbourne - Melbourne was quite the grand European style city, while early Sydney seems to be mostly represented as a grubby collection of ramshackle houses!

We ventured next door to have a look at the Australian High Court, an imposing building of concrete and glass.



Some pretty exciting cases have gone on here, one of the most famous being the landmark case of Mabo v Queensland (No 2) in 1992, which finally directly rejected the legal concept of terra nullius in Australia and recognised Aboriginal land rights.

Then it started to rain. A lot. So we hurried back to campus over the bridge. Had a 2 hour nap, then went to meet some philosophers at a nice pub called the Wig and Pen for beer and fish and chips, followed by a trip to a Halloween house party! We failed in Halloween costumes due to lack of preparation, but I procured a lovely tail at some point and wore it all night. It felt so natural to have a tail! I really want to grow one - this prompted some discussion over tail-reassignment surgery.

Sunday was a far more pleasant day - a bit more breeze and sun. We headed back to the Parliamentary centre and visited Old Parliament House and its lovely rose gardens.





Seat of Parliament from 1927 to 1988, it is now the Museum of Democracy (with an agreeable $2 entry fee), which has some interesting displays about parliamentary history in Australia. Most interesting though is the fact that many of the original offices and rooms have been preserved as they would have been at various times, so you can see, for example, meeting rooms circa 1930 and office space circa 1970. You can also enter the original Senate and House of Representatives chambers.



In front of the Old Parliament House, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy has stood since 1972, despite continual controversy and several arson attacks against it. The Aboriginal activists that occupy the site promote the political movement of Aboriginal Sovereignty, which demands among other things land rights and compensation. Apparently there have been numerous attempts to remove it but I am glad it is still there as a reminder of some of Australia's more difficult political issues.

We climbed up Capital Hill to (new) Parliament House, as our last port of call before we had to head for the bus back to Sydney.



We were both pretty indifferent to the building, but there was a nice expansive view from outside over the Old Parliament and the War Memorial in the distance.



Let me remind you again, you are technically looking at a city centre in that picture! Ruuuural. We wanted to go inside, and you can, but you have to be scanned and metal detected and it was a bit involved and we only had 10 minutes before we had to leave for the long bus home, so that was the end. We arrived back to a sodden Sydney, 4 hours later.

And this weekend is sodden once more. Friday was our 7 year anniversary, and we spent it having a wonderful dinner at Yulli's on Crown Street followed by a cocktail at the Lounge. Today we managed to get a wonderful breakfast in at Four Ate Five before the drizzle began, Mark had the vegan mexican breakfast and I had poached eggs and avocado on rye toast. MMMM. I spent the afternoon reading Amsterdam by Ian McEwan. And so it goes.

Surry Hills

It's odd how close to the city we are here. That's the view from the top of our road, the shiny modern towers of the Central Business District rising above the old warehouse buildings that make up much of Surry Hills*. A lot of industry was centred in the area, in particular the garment trade, and indeed some of this has survived the gentrification process to still exist today.

Surry Hills is an interesting area, really. From its beginnings as a village in the 1830s, to being swallowed up as a suburb by the growing city over the next few decades. Rapid population growth fuelled the minds of unruly developers, out to make money with little regard for the provision of basic amenities such as plumbing and drainage, and the area quickly declined into an overcrowded slum. By the early 20th century, Surry Hills was rife with the symptoms of poverty and destitution - alcoholism, prostitution and crime. Over the next few decades, various attempts were made by the city council to clean up the area, by demolishing and rebuilding parts where narrow lanes and derelict housing encouraged shady goings on. By the 1970s though, many original residents had moved away and been replaced by waves of immigrants from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
But as is the way of things in so many places, during the 1980s and 90s, young professionals started to move back into the Hills, attracted by the affordable housing so close to the city. It's now a real mix of stuff, smart terraces and boutique shops, warehouses and older tenement buildings. Many charitable organisations also set up in the area in its darker days and are still based here, providing services for the homeless, those with drug problems, sex workers etc. At the top of our road is a Mission Australia home that provides accommodation for elderly people who are homeless or have mental health problems - I walk past it on my way to work and it looks like a happy enough place - all the residents sit out on the terrace in the morning having breakfast!

Today was a drizzly Sunday. But we pootled down to Bourke Street Bakery and I stuffed a DELICIOUS pain au chocolat down my digestive system so fast I had chocolate all over my face and pastry all in my hair and Mark laughed at me. We also bought a fennel and raisin sourdough loaf that is delicious in a sweet, herby way. It's good there in the Bourke Street Bakery, although VERY popular, even in the rain there was a huge queue. We went to the Gnome cafe on Crown Street for a coffee, then to the supermarket (boring) then home. Mark is off to Canberra tomorrow morning at 7am, I will join him there on Friday evening!


*And yes, the weather is as dismal as it looks. This weekend has been a write-off. And the forecast is continued rain ALL WEEK. And it's about 7 degrees in Canberra. And I sent my coats home in the crate. Ouch, Australia, you hurt me. :(

In which so many things have gone on

Readers, dear readers, please do not think I have abandoned you!!! I have been moving and organising and all manner of other things.

So, back the the UK we go, arriving for February. Which, provided this Sydney February is as unpleasantly HOT as the last one, will be a nice time to leave. But, if this UK February is as unpleasantly COLD as the last one, it will likewise not be a particularly pleasant time to arrive. One cannot win, really.

We have moved out of Erskineville. Over to Surry Hills. All our worldly goods are in a container somewhere, waiting for their journey back across the sea. We got Crown to do our removals again this time - the guys that came were awesome, best removal ever - everything got so well wrapped and packed. Oddly a much better job was done than by the same company on the way over! They must have upped their stakes.

We are reduced again to a life out of a suitcase for the next few months. Until the novelty wears off I must admit it is a pleasant state of affairs, to have your life that simple that it all fits into one bag.



The living room in the new house... It's small but cosy. Surry Hills is ok, it doesn't have the community feel of Erskineville/Newtown. Lots of cafes, bars, restaurants, but doesn't feel like there's a lot to do unless you have a lot of money to burn. There's no bookshops, really. Although there is a great library.

We said a sad goodbye to two of our dear friends - Chesney and Totoro! Off they went in the crate!



The weather is very up and down at the moment. Which I guess is usual for this time of year as the skies adjust to being warmer. The rain is abundant but we we have had a few nice days. They have tended to be during the week though, unfortunately for me stuck in my office. Today we are rained off and stuck inside, although we did get a good brunch in at Four Ate Five on Crown Street (vegan mexican bean breakfast - YUM).

I should be off to Canberra next weekend, and definitely Melbourne the weekend after that, so there should be some more fun stuff to write about soon. Mark has been to a rockabilly-only barbershop and is sporting an excellent new hair-do. Last Saturday night we went to an astonomy open evening at Macquarie Uni and got to look through a telescope to see Jupiter and its moons, and Uranus. Also we learnt about how to find south using the Southern Cross constellation. We have eaten at Atom Thai, Cafe Sopra, Kai on King, Sofia, Bloodwood and Mamak.

I am spending the afternoon in Narnia, or more precisely in Ettinsmoor on the way to Harfang.....yes I raided the children's section of the library! Also watching the rain fall outside the window.....hope for a nicer day tomorrow.

roller derby & melancholia

Tonight I went to Roller Derby at Hordern Pavillion with Dean, Zane, Erin, etc (I was the heterosexual minority which was novel!) - Sydney versus Wollongong Illawara (Sydney thrashed them woo woo woo!). It was my first Roller Derby experience and I had a great time! The rules seem complicated but it's actually quite simple. And there is a lot of shoving - I was quite surprised how violent it was! The best thing about it is the showmanship aspect - all the girls have fun 'skating names' like "Peaches Obscene" and "Babycakes" and "Miss Sin Doll" and "Vindi Vicious" and the style is really burlesque - lots of make-up, minimal clothing, lots of lace and ruffles and tattoos and glitter and showing off.

Now I am home eating beans on toast and watching some awful film called Before Sunrise despite the fact the Ethan Hawke character is grating on my brain (keeps coming out with such cringe-worthy/scientifically disastrous/irrational gems as 'so 10 thousand years ago there were only a million souls, today there are x million, so where did all those extra souls come from, they must be reincarnated'). But it's set in Vienna and the premise is the characters meet on a train and spend the night in Vienna together, walking around. It makes me want to go to Vienna.

I kind of feel like Vienna might be one of those places like Sydney, that are just so close to reaching near perfection as a place to be. Vienna has, for me, almost everything. A beautiful city, beautiful surrounding countryside, great weather (reliably hot, sunny summers and reliably real, cold, snowy winters), low living costs (comparative to most western european capitals), amazing culture and history, great bars and fun nightlife (surprisingly, and something Sydney definitely lacks), plus plenty to fill your days with. It is safe, and quiet, the transport is amazing and everything is just so well run. The only thing it lacks is coastline and good food (austrian food has tendencies to make my insides revolt, rather quickly - it is just meat and stodge! No fish! No vegetables!). Two things that Sydney of course can offer, in abundance.

It is places like these, like Vienna, like Sydney, like Paris, like Melbourne, like Berlin....that make me feel sometimes there is no hope for me in the United Kingdom. But then I think, I have to find something. I have to look really hard and find something there, because I have to live there. This makes me feel a strange mixture of determination, hope, and confused melancholy.

'Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear, we can begin to feed.'

I just made the BEST dinner - thai yellow coconut curry with prawn, red pepper* and pak choi. I love asian greens, I always like to eat them whilst Mark is away as he doesn't like them so much. I like the bitterness and the crunch. I guess I've always liked things like that, cabbage, sprouts etc. Green leafy things as part of a hot meal.

I really don't have that much to report. Stress continues to plague me in various guises - all UK-move-related. But I am calmer today due to a possible step forward on the temporary accommodation front and after a long discussion with one of my staff (Rosie) about Port Stephens and all the things we can do when we go up there in November with Mark's parents. I am planning a lot of swimming, walking, relaxing, whale and dolphin watching, fish eating, and horse riding. Spring break!!!

Since Mark went away I've not been really doing that much, which I'm hoping to change this weekend with at least one proper day out. Last Saturday I got the train to Redfern then walked into Glebe and met Dean at about 10.30am, we visited La Banette, the bakery/patisserie and bought many pastry and cakey and bread based items. La Banette is great - can't believe I've not been before. They do this mini brioche thing stuffed with nutella, omg so nice!!!
We got the bus back to Newtown and dropped the food at Dean's before heading round to Shenkin to drink coffee and milkshakes and eat hommous and falafel and greek salad. Mmmm Shenkin falafel is amazing, and their hommous is pretty much the best ever. Possibly even better than the chile dip from Sultan's Table. We sat for a long long time then went back to Dean's to while away another couple of hours playing with the dogs. Then I walked back down the road to mine and watched the last of my DVDs before I had to take them back to the video shop, the last one being Notting Hill, which was enjoyable enough but Love Actually is SO much better. Then I walked up to the video shop to put my DVDs in the returns chute.

Sunday I woke up feeling a little ill. Lay around feeling sorry for myself for a while but then had a shower and caught the train to Circular Quay for a walk and to take some more photos. Then bought some AMAZING CHEESE from David Jones on the way home. Like mega creamy brie with a blue vein. Oh and also 6 oysters to try to make myself feel healthy. Oh oysters. How I love thee.

'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,
'You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.



*Yes, pepper. I may have slipped comfortably into 'eggplant' for aubergine, come around to 'chips' for crisps, and eventually even forced myself to adopt 'lollies' for sweets, I cannot and will not ever bring myself to call a pepper a 'capsicum'.

Musings on the present and the future.

Part of the Kaldor Public Art Projects 2010 is currently on just down the road from us in the former brickworks on the edge of Sydney Park. They are currently being used to contain Stephen Vitiello's sound installation "The Sound of Red Earth" - sounds recorded in the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Each of the buildings is a different theme - my favourite being the coastal one with sand on the floor and the sound of the ocean.





Mark has left for Europe for 3 weeks and thusly I am lonesome. Although I did go to the video shop and rent The Boat that Rocked, Notting Hill, and series 1 of Pushing Daisies, so I have many hours of entertainment. On Friday night we had a goodbye meal for Mark (the other Mark) and Daniella down at the Sultan's Table in Enmore, as they are leaving for India for the next few months! I've never really wanted to go to India before, well, not really been bothered about it I suppose, but I'm quite into the idea now! Thinking about an Indian holiday at some point. I am getting Japan cravings again, too - can't wait to go back but that's an expensive one so will probably be a few years before we make it back. I would love to visit the onsen (hot springs) and go down to Hiroshima.

Went to an election party the other week at Nick's house in Stanmore! Got confused when the coverage on different channels was showing completely different results, ended up dancing to video channels instead, drank a lot of red wine, and set fire to a picture of Tony Abbott in the garden. There is a hung parliament now, deja vu!!! Hung parliaments are à la mode.

Election aside, the main news over here for us is that it looks like we are moving back to the UK in 2011. Which feels incredibly soon and I'm not really sure I want to....but more on that another time.

Anyway, I need ideas for entertaining myself in Sydney over the next 3 weeks! I'm usually full of ideas for stuff I want to do when Mark goes away, but this time I'm at a slight loss, oddly. I'll have to plan some walks I guess. I think it's Pyrmont Markets next Saturday so I'll hopefully make it down there (although it's SUCH an early start!). I guess he's only been away over the hot times before, so I normally just go to the beach. No beach yet, not yet. In a few weeks hopefully the beach weather will come. Although I am fond of the beaches on a nice winter day for a walk - beaches are a lot more attractive when there aren't oodles of people slathered all over them.

We were saying recently how maybe one benefit of being back in the UK is that we will perhaps be a bit more sociable again. We have both been a little lonely in Sydney, Mark doesn't really see many people and most of the people I meet through work are not permanent in Aus, or they are just...'work people'...you know? Like...nice people.....but, you wouldn't necessarily socialise outside because you only have work in common really.
I've always made an effort to stay away from the "expat community" and all that business, because I always thought it seemed a bit counter-productive...like, if you move abroad and only socialise with people from the country you've moved from, you can only really be looking back, and I'm not one for looking back if I can help it. As it turned out, most of the people who became my closest friends were expats, non-australian, so maybe I shouldn't have tried to avoid that so much!

Aaaanyway, just looked up Mark's flights, he'll be in Berlin in about a hour, finally! Such a long journey, I've had two full days and one whole night's sleep since he started travelling. Actually can't wait to be in Europe again - not UK but Europe. A magical place where you can get a flight for an hour and a half and actually land in a different country from the one you set off from! Ahh. Going to watch this film now. Work tomorrow. Goodnight!

In which I make a rare foray outside Sydney

My goodness the weather has gone wonderful. Walking around the last few days in glorious sunshine, no coat, not even a jumper on. Perhaps spring has made it through. Time to plant some herbs.

Last week I was down in Wollongong, a couple of hours south of Sydney, for a work conference. It was long and tiring, but this was the view from my hotel room:



At 5pm on Thursday evening.



At 7am the following morning.

A busy few days were punctuated with walks on the beach and evening fun times with my work buddies. The last night was a Friday 13th themed dinner and ball, and everyone went all out on the fancy dress! I went as Alex from Clockwork Orange, borrowing Mark's white skinny jeans and braces and adding a black bowler hat to complete the look!

On Saturday, after it was all over, I checked out of the hotel and had a little walk round Wollongong. It's a hit and miss kind of place. Nice along one stretch of the water, a bit bland in the town itself and some parts seemed a bit run down.



I didn't hang around too long and headed for the station, where I caught a south coast line train 50 minutes further south to the little town of Kiama.

Kiama is a very attractive place and has a lot of historic buildings in its little centre. It's set around a little bay with a shingle beach, the main sandy surf beach being in the next bay down.



The main attraction however is the blowhole, up on the cliff, a natural feature where seawater is forced up through a hole in the cliff creating a huge plume and a very loud gurgle. There is a viewing platform built all around the blowhole, so I hung out there for a bit. I could have watched it for hours, it was brilliant! I never expected it to shoot out so high in the air.





Lighthouse and blowhole viewing platform.

Blowhole visited, I had a slow wander back to the station. My bag with all my stuff in from the conference was becoming pretty heavy so it was time to head for home. Unfortunately, the train ride was a long 3 hours, but there was a lot of great scenery on the way, along the coast and, further north, the Royal National Park.

Got home and Mark met me at the station with much needed Shenkin coffee! Then we spent the evening eating thai food and drinking wine up at Thai Passion in Newtown, before a long long sleep.

In which I am uplifted and have adventures.

A couple of weeks ago, Mark and I ate at Mamak, drank a cocktail at Opera Bar and finally attended an evening at the Opera House with Stephen Fry. Which was an entirely enjoyable evening and indeed an inspiring one, as Mr Fry recounted tales from his youth and not-so-youth, such as when he met Hugh Laurie for the first time and holidaying with Peter Cook in Egypt. He also ate a Tim Tam on stage and liked it a good deal.

Last Saturday, we scoffed coffee and pie at Black Star in Newtown before making our way to Oxford Street. Popped into old haunt Ampersand cafe bookstore to look for books and drink chai latte. Mark got a couple of philos books but I didn't find anything. I am starting to find that in second hand bookstores, I just gravitate towards editions of books I already know and love and want to buy them again....Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Goethe's Faust, anything by Joe Orton...I had to stop myself buying a great 1970s edition of What the Butler Saw - I really don't need a third copy!

Wandered on down into Paddington and stopped in at the newly opened Paddington Reservoir - the old site having been transformed into a new landscaped urban park. It's great in there - very calm - and there are chairs you can sit in so we did that for a bit.





Wandered around the market in Paddo for a bit, then back up Oxford Street for a look in Incu. We turned off in the direction of Rushcutters Bay and found some lovely streets, but got hungry so headed back up to Crown Street for late late lunch at Kawa (actually, Mark ordered breakfast even though it was 4pm!).
Then retired to the cinema for wine and to watch The Special Relationship which was good.

Sunday saw a nice bit of relaxation in favourite cafe, The Kick Inside up on Erskineville Road. Coffee and apple crumble, and a long hour's indulgence in my new David Mitchell.



Reading this is like slipping into a pool of velvet. Every page is so wonderfully evocative. And The Kick Inside is a great reading environment with its sofas and lovable coffee.



Then we caught the train to Circular Quay and did something I've had on my to-do list for a long, long time: Susannah Place museum.



Susannah Place is a row of terraced houses built in 1844 in The Rocks. The houses were continuously occupied from that point up until the mid 1970s, the last tenants moving out in 1990 at which point the terraces were handed over to the Historic Houses Trust.
We paid our $8 and joined the last tour of the day, and the guide took us through the houses, telling us stories of all the tenants along the way. The houses have been largely left as they were when last vacated, but have been furnished for different eras using the memories and photographs provided by former tenants.
The walls and ceilings were cracked and peeling, and you could see layers of paint and paper. The rooms were very small and cramped, with low ceilings, kitchens in the basement, toilets in the backyard. It was amazing the number of people that lived in those small rooms together - it was a real insight into the life of the working classes in Sydney in the 19th and 20th centuries. One had a double bed and a single bed crammed into a tiny bedroom, which had been shared by 3 sisters. Another house had a rudimentary shower installed in the basement, constructed it seemed from corrugated plastic, after the owner had become fed up of taking baths in the outhouse!
The tour also included watching a video where they took former tenants of the houses, people who had grown up in Susannah Place, and asked them about their memories. They seemed to remember a lot of hardship from their lives there, but it was fascinating watching them walk round the houses and say things like "we had our table here". It reminded you that real people had spent their lives there. Really interesting.

winter brrrrrrrrr

I am currently going through my third Sydney winter. With this vast experience behind me, I can now share with you some extensive research I have conducted into Sydney winters. I have learnt the following things:

- No matter how old or new, rickety or solid your house is, during winter, the inside temperature will maintain a constant 10 degrees colder than the outside temperature.

- This is due to the Australian insistence that insulation is on the whole unnecessary.

- This in turn means that, no matter how old or new, rickety or solid your house is, you will constantly find patches of mould on your walls.

- To combat this, the advice is to ventilate your rooms thoroughly, everyday. This lowers even further the indoor temperature of your house.

- The disparity between indoor and outdoor temperature may trick you into putting on 64782 layers before you leave the house. Don't. You will be sweating within minutes.

- No matter how hot I am hurrying around with one too many layers on, I still see plenty of Sydneysiders all bundled up in hats, scarves and big padded coats as though they were off for a polar expedition.

- To cope with indoor temperatures, I have established from talking to Australians that it is normal to have an array of thick winter houseclothes, far more than you would ever need outside.

- As well as the above, it is normal to have a duvet on your sofa during winter, to sit under when you are watching tv, reading, or other sofa-based activities. I went in for this this winter and it's lovable!

In which the sky is blue and the Opera House gleams

Opera House in mid-winter......

Sunday was the most beautiful, sunny warm day. I took the train to Circular Quay and walked up to the Opera House, out of boredom more than anything. There were so many people. Opera Bar was heaving and they had live music outside.



The sails look so smooth from a distance. It always surprises me to see the mosaic effect close up.



The city gleams. I took a very similar photo back on the first day I arrived in Sydney.

From the Opera House, I walked back round Circular Quay and into the Rocks, stopping at that little cafe for a Florentine (my favourite ever biscuit). Wandered further on up George Street suffering a severe coffee craving and trying to find a flat white that wasn't $4.50 ($3.50 is really my upper limit when paying for coffee) but failed. Sat around Susannah Place for a little while, then gandered back down George Street all the way to St James for the train home.

Tonight I am working uggh. Although it is less painful when at home on the sofa with a cup of tea and the tv on. I'm out of the office on a management course for the next couple of days, so it's going to be very busy trying to catch up. Mark is back home first thing in the morning, so hopefully I'll see him before I go to work!

In which Luna Park is very enjoyable.

Mark has been away this week, on a fleeting visit (really fleeting - less than a week between arrival and departure!) back to the UK for a job interview. But more on that another time.

With Mark away, my last week passed rather quietly, but not unpleasantly. Friday however was an exciting day. Dean (my boss) took Sharon (the other team leader in our unit) and I out for a lovely lunch at Grasshopper, a little restaurant and bar just down from our office on Temperance Lane (off George Street - you can't actually see it from George Street and I always thought the lane was just a place where bins were kept, it was surprising to see a restaurant at the end of it!). It was a great meal. I had Sydney Rock oysters to start followed by Kingfish with aioli. Delicious!! Dean had a scotch quail's egg for his starter which looked like the greatest thing ever. It's a cool little restaurant, and the bar downstairs looked good too, although I imagine considering its location right in the city, it probably gets a little 'businessy' most nights.

After work was Aisling and Louise's leaving party (they are off back to Ireland), for which they came up with the ingenious idea of a trip to Luna Park, Sydney's famous, historic amusement park.

We caught the train to Milson's Point, just the other side of the Harbour Bridge, and trundled our way downhill until the lights of the great big Luna Park Face stood before us!



The entry is through the mouth! On Friday you can get an unlimited pass for all rides for $35, so with wristbands installed on our wrists, off we went. First up was the Tango Train, a music express ride that spun you round and round and up and down. Then, Mark, Geaspar and May went on the Rotor, while the rest of us sensibly watched from the viewing platform at the top. The Rotor is like a human-sized salad spinner - it starts spinning and then they take the floor away and you stick to the wall because of the centrifugal force! It made us feel dizzy watching it. Then, Aisling and I squeezed into a car on the Wild Mouse rollercoaster, which is a real olden days style rickety wooden roller coaster and is actually terrifying because it is right on the edge of the harbour and tricks you into thinking you are going to fall into the water!



Then we rode the swings which made us cold as we breezed through the night air, then Mark, Daniella, May, Geaspar and I went off to ride the Dodgems while everyone else went for the Waltzer. The dodgems were my favourite I think - it was amazing fun!!!



A lot of candy floss later and Daniella and I went to ride the Carousel whilst everyone else went on something more spinny and less charming.



The Carousel is a genuine 19th Century carousel and is beautiful! It plays music from an organ dating from 1904, all tinkly.



I rode a horse, Daniella rode a cockerel. Finally, we rode the ferris wheel, which, with this view over Sydney Harbour, is pretty much worth the entry price alone:



Then it was almost 11pm and time for the park to close and us all to go home to our beds, not least because it was a very chilly night and we had been swooping around outside getting chilled for too long. But we could not leave before Mark and Geaspar went on the Rotor again because they are INSANE. I'll have to go back to take Mark on the ferris wheel. I did have a surprising amount of fun at Luna Park - there are enough rides to please pretty much anyone, and there was a good mix of people there, not just big groups of irritating teenagers like you would get at british funfairs.

legislate everything !!!

On the weekend, Mark and I made a visit to the Justice and Police Museum down at Circular Quay, which had been on our weekend agenda for some time but delayed due to the surprise onslaught of very pleasant weather over the last couple of weeks.

The museum is housed in the building that held various different police and court functions throughout the 19th century, and has been restored to its former 1890s glory. Thus, you can wander through a reconstructed court room, police charge room and cells.



The cells were so dingy, and according to my guide leaflet, each would have held up to 12 prisoners at a time. There was only a tiny slit of natural light and each one was barely larger than my own small bedroom! It was a bit spooky.

What was good about the room set ups was that you could wander around everywhere - nothing was fenced off. You could go behind the desk and prod around, and there were lots of original 19th century court and police documents around so you could really get a sense of what went on there.

The rest of the building was more of a traditional museum set up, with exhibition sections on bushrangers, the development of forensic science and how it was used in some famous Australian cases, the history of the police in Australia, the development of various punishment methods, and a rather creepy room full of a collection of weapons confiscated from criminals over the years, the walls around the cases decorated with a disconcerting series of mugshots.



They were a random selection of mugshots of people arrested between 1913 and 1930 in Sydney. There were some really rather unpleasant faces staring out!

The main exhibition space was currently hosting the Sin City exhibition - a fascinating exposé of police corruption in Sydney, from the beginnings of the settlement through to the modern day. It's disturbing what has gone on, and the links between those at the top of the justice system and those at the top of the criminal world. Australia's criminal history (and present, to be honest) is fascinating to me as it has these big kingpin figures, gangs and crime families. The system of organised crime is much more open here, even a little more accepted. That's an aspect of life we just don't really get a lot of exposure to in the UK.
I remember when I first arrived here and started working at HCF, a girl at work was having a lot of trouble with a certain police station in Sydney, and some other colleagues were agreeing that that police station was corrupt and she would never get anywhere with them. At the time I just thought "naah that's silly", but after seeing this exhibition and the kind of stuff that's happened even in the last few years, it's made me wonder. There were endless bribes and high ranking police officials socialising with known criminal masterminds.
One of the most illustrative topics covered in the exhibition was the story of the Victoria Point Development in the 1970s. A property developer with dubious connections decided he wanted to knock down all the houses of Victoria Street in Pott's Point, to build a new complex. This would involve evicting many people from their houses, but they refused. The developer employed thugs, organised by a former NSW police detective, to terrorise the residents. Residents were threatened, assaulted in one case kidnapped. Eventually, video footage showed NSW police standing by in the street whilst the gang dragged people from their homes. Juanita Nielson, a publisher and vocal opponent of the development was mysteriously 'disappeared', presumed murdered, in 1975, an inquiry held during the 90s stating that police corruption had impeded the police investigation at the time.

The rest of the weekend was spent eating malaysian delights at Mamak in Chinatown (Mamak! Long time no see!), and brunching at South End on King Street (first time I've ever had food here in this homely little cafe - it was great!), in which the back room reminds me so much of the upstairs of Boston Tea Party in Bristol it's quite a delight. Also Doctor Who, of course. I don't know what I will do once Doctor Who finishes. What will I do on Sunday nights?? And Poirot has finished now too! I am frightened.

I want to make a food map of Sydney with all my favourite places on. Like a little guide to good things in each area, what they do, what they cost, what the vibe is like, who goes there, kind of thing. Best coffee, best takeaway, best for a chill out, best for a special occasion, all that. It will be very Inner West/Redfern/Surry Hills centred, I guess, but still. I might do it, even if only for my own reference! So I don't do UTTERLY DAFT THINGS again like forget about Mamak and leave it unvisited for the best part of a YEAR.
MEIN GOTT I love food. (P.S. I'm joining the gym. It's come to this!)

Seaplane birthday

Well I mentioned my birthday in the previous post, but I have not yet mentioned someone else who had a rather important birthday recently - Mark turned 30 back in the middle of May!

It was a really good day and I was really glad we were in Sydney for it as it gave me the chance to organise something really special that you just couldn't really match in the UK - a trip on the seaplane!



I booked us a 30 minute scenic flight with Sydney Seaplanes in Rose Bay. I also kept it a secret from Mark so he didn't really work it out until we got on the Rose Bay ferry from Circular Quay at 9am that morning! We had a lovely quiet 10 minute ferry trip across the harbour (it was a weekday and everything always seems very peaceful on a weekday when you are used to only doing stuff at weekends!), and we were a bit early so had a gander round the park in Rose Bay, which was full of Rose Bay yummy mummies watching their toddler groups or whatever it is you do when you are a Rose Bay yummy mummy.

Then we went over to the Seaplane office - I think Mark was just relieved we weren't doing the Harbour Bridge Climb or doing a skydive or something (vertigoooo)! Had a quick safety talk (exactly like you get on a big plane!) and boarded the plane ready to go! There were 7 of us on the plane - Mark & I, a couple and their young son from Melbourne, a guy on holiday from the UK who was really into light aircraft, and the pilot. It was actually really comfortable - the inside of the plane was really nicely done out and very clean and comfortable. Our pilot was great too - he told us all about the plane and pointed out everything we flew past so we knew what we were looking down at. It looked so different from the air!



We were off! It was a really clear day, but quite windy, which meant it was a little bumpy but on the upside, you could literally see for miles. Right out into the Blue Mountains inland, and out over endless sea the other side. It was great. We flew up over the harbour, along the cliffs and up the Northern Beaches, hugging the coast all the way.





Within 15 minutes, we were up flying over Pittwater, the water dotted with hundreds of boats. Kuringai National Park stretched out to our left, while we curved to the left and circled Barrenjoey Head and a magnificently gleaming Palm Beach.



Heading back south again, we ended on a loop over the Harbour and the towers of the CBD before coming into land in Rose Bay again.



After getting our land-legs back again, we took the ferry back to the city and made our way to Waterloo for lunch at Cafe Sopra, before home for a cup of tea. The evening was spent splashing out on an absolutely wonderful 8-course degustation at Bécasse in the city. Hopefully a memorable 30th birthday!