Bye January, Bye Australia

January has seen some crazy times, that seem a world away now as I sit here wrapped in blankets, fire blazing, looking out of the window over frosty English countryside...

...The new year 2011 started as it meant to go on with layers of thick, sticky heat falling over Sydney.



We took a trip out to visit our old house in Meadowbank and caught the Parramatta River ferry back to the city, like we always used to do back in the day.



We hung out at Sydney Observatory and on Observatory Hill, my favourite place in the world...we did the night tour at Sydney Observatory also, got to look at Jupiter and a lovely nebula!



We took our last day trip out to the Blue Mountains - where the air was fresh and clean and delicious - walked the giant steps, Furber steps and through the Jamison Valley. I ached for the next 3 days.

We've seen the sights, walked over the Harbour Bridge, swam at Balmoral, and spent a lovely evening with Dean at the free open-air concert in the Domain, Sydney Symphony performing a Shakespeare-themed set of works, with our accompanying selection of wine, cheese and antipasto. We saw Kitty, Daisy and Lewis play some fun rock 'n' roll at the Sydney Festival, and The National play an amazing gig at the Enmore Theatre. We braved the queue for the Annie Leibowitz retrospective at the MCA and found it thoroughly worth the wait. We had flat whites and falafels at Shenkin in Erskineville (my favourite home for always), thickshakes at BuzzzBar in Newtown, poached eggs at Baffi and Mo in Redfern, rojak and cendol at Mamak in Chinatown, polenta chips and many other delights with David and Kristie at Bloodwood in Newtown, Four Ate Five's excellent chips in Surry Hills, Crust Pizza in Neutral Bay (Crust Pizza!!!), and the most fabulous 3 course meal with the most delectable bottle of wine at Glebe Point Diner.

I had my last day at work and my colleagues bought me some beautiful antique silver rose earrings. Mark and I held our leaving party at Emma's shop, we had a vegetarian BBQ, and we drank our 2003 vintage Moet that I had been saving for such an occasion.

Our last day in Sydney was a busy one, made rather difficult by the fact the weather suddenly decided it was a good idea to be 36 degrees (THIRTY SIX DEGREES) for the day. Poor Mark had to carry an 8kg box to the Post Office, then we had to find lunch somewhere that had air conditioning before we passed out (Deus ex Machina sufficed with their lovely salads, giving us a chance to cool down). Then a trip to the bank where I lost the plot slightly and Mark had to do my accounting for me which probably made the bank people think he was trying to steal all my money or something.

Then a trip up the Sydney Tower!



For some last minute postcard sending and surveying of our beautiful land...

And the day was over. Just the evening was left, a last drink with Dean at the Art House Hotel and then onwards into the night to watch Priscilla Queen of the Desert at Emma's in Surry Hills.

On Tuesday 25th at 8am, a taxi came to Neutral Bay, a taxi came and took us away. It took us over the Harbour Bridge, past Circular Quay, and south to the airport. A final flat white later and we boarded a plane, one final loop over Sydney, beautiful Sydney, Sydney my home, and we were gone.

two thousand ten/eleven

December rather flew by. I assume it happened, there wasn't anything on the news about it going missing. So it must have just gone really fast. I don't remember a whole lot happening, other than going to see the Australian Ballet's most wonderful production of the Nutcracker at the Opera House. We both loved it so much, I want to go to the ballet again soon. And it was so Christmassy, the perfect show to see the week before Christmas.

Christmas happened and passed almost unnoticed as we weren't really able to do much normal celebrating. We had a rather super Christmas Eve though. I left work at midday and we trooped on down to the Fish Market, not a particularly fun walk in the searing heat but all worth it in the end as we stocked up on tasty sea creatures.



The fish market was heaving as seafood is Australia's Christmas dinner of choice. It took us a while to get round, but we eventually came away with oysters, a huge tuna steak, and some salmon and tuna sashimi as well as smoked salmon. After taking the fishies home to the fridge, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the city, wandering around the shops (I bought a rather fancy new iPod for myself, naughty).

Walked up to Crown Street in the evening to eat at Yulli's, the vegetarian restaurant, had a lovely bottle of wine then emerged again once more onto streets full of festive cheer....the Clock Hotel across the road seemed to call us in, the bar staff were all dressed as elves, and we demanded glasses of port, which took rather a while to find, but finally some tasty christmassy port did emerge. We drank it out on the balcony, under the clock tower for which the pub is named.

Christmas morning saw a slow start. We got up and made our way over to our new friend Emma's house, on the way we walked passed the Salvation Army office, they were throwing a party with lots of families there and they had a truck loaded up with bags of toys they were giving out. It warmed our hearts. Collected Emma then altogether walked down to Central and took the train to Newtown. We spent the day under the beautiful sun in the garden of a King Street terrace, in the company of a number of miscellaneous adults, an 8 year old, and 18 month old, and the world's most excitable dog. We feasted endlessly on prawns, roast vegetables, salads and large amounts of wine. An excellent day.

The next three days rained. Solidly. We stayed at home and watched the cricket. On Tuesday, we moved up to our new (and final) house in Neutral Bay, where we will stay for the next couple of weeks until the time comes to make the journey back to the UK.

I had to work Tuesday-Friday, and it was frantic. I have never known it so busy and it was really hard to keep calm, especially as we had a couple of minor disasters involving things going wrong and a couple of member complaints. Especially demoralizing as it seemed every other person in Sydney was still on holiday! Oh well, come New Year's Eve I was ready for some fun, after a nap of course.

We met up with some friends at a barbecue at a house in Surry Hills, then walked over to Oxford Street to try our luck getting into a mythical secret party which may or may not have existed. That failed, and since midnight was approaching we taxied down to Moore Park to sit on a hill, drink wine and watch the fireworks. It was nice up on the hill, just a small crowd of people, mostly just local families and quite a few children. There were 2 policemen but they just let everyone carry on drinking even though it's technically an alcohol-free area, as no one was causing any trouble. It was nice.



Mark, Emma and Anya on the hill.



Mark and I


Our view of the Sydney city skyline.

We went back to Emma's shop afterwards and cleared the rails for a party.



Ended up dancing and drinking and dozing on and off until the sun came up on 2011, and Mark and I made our way back to the North Shore to sleep our way through the rest of an extremely hot New Year's Day.

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!

Fridays and Saturdays

Last Friday - Karl's Farewell Dinner and Drinks at Blackbird Cafe, Darling Harbour

Karl has left Australia to go back to the England (he's from Chelmsford, haha) as his visa finally ended. I was sad - I've worked with Karl for well over a year and it's strange without him. He was always someone I had a lot of time for.



Aisling, Michael and May

We went to Blackbird straight from work to take full advantage of cocktail happy hour. It was very bright sitting in the big windows, but the view over Darling Harbour was lovely.



Me and Emer



Aisling and Dean (our boss) - He put on her sunglasses and brushed all his hair forward and looked like a pimp. Aisling was scared!

We all ordered and ate and then after dinner we presented Karl with the photobook we made for him!! We got photos of everyone at work, loads from the christmas party, various nights out, some we got from Josie (his gf) from their trips to Jervis Bay. Michael, Aisling and I made the book, and then everyone at work wrote messages in it. It took us 3 days to make but it looked so good! He was so chuffed with it as well!



Karl looking at the book

After Blackbird, we moved up the road to another bar for more drinks.



Aisling and Karl



Me, Karl and May

I left about 10pm and went back to Newtown to meet Mark for yet another cocktail in Madame Fling Flong, to celebrate him getting another paper accepted for publication that week.

Last Saturday - lazing in Balmain and Surry Hills

Saturday morning saw us up early and off on the bus to Balmain to go back to Adriano Zumbo! Mark saw what I bought when I went with Dean and wanted to see for himself! Zumbo is Mark-heaven to be honest - he does love his sugar. We got a new stash of macaroons as well as our new favourite food, almond croissants.

Then back to Surry Hills for coffee drinking and writing at Kawa and Surry Hills library. Surry Hills library is amazing! So nice and airy and so many magazines you can read.





This weekend has been thus far a quieter affair. Friday night - fish and chips from Erskineville Fish and Chips and an early night. Today, a visit to Shenkin for coffee and Buzzzbar for milkshake and a bite to eat. Note-taking for Japan. 3 days until we leave! I bought a new journal for the trip. Can't wait!

SYD.NYE 2009/10

New Year's Eve this time around passed in a similar manner to the previous year's. I wanted to go to Balmain again to watch the fireworks on the harbour, but some friends were heading for Observatory Hill in the CBD, and so swayed by that fact as well as the promise of a much shorter trip home (last year it took us over an hour to even get out of Balmain) we set off to meet them at about 5pm.

When we arrived, the hill was pretty busy but it was still possible to get a patch of grass. Unfortunately said patch of grass was on a rather steep slope, which proved rather uncomfortable. And you had to attach all your bags to you to stop them rolling down. Still, it's not something you have to do every day so we wedged ourselves in.



Mark, Lise, Mel and Dom.



Me and Mark.



The view is bridge end-on. Which means you don't get the great symmetrical side-on view you get from Balmain, and you don't get to see the light show properly on the side of the bridge. But since you are right in the centre of the action, with fireworks going off on all sides, it does make for an equally good, if different, experience.

It was a pretty drizzly, grey day and we were slightly concerned about it being a bit wet to sit out. But the worst of the rain seemed to dry up around lunch time and by the evening there was even a little bit of sun poking out through the clouds.



It starts to get dark. I'm not sure if I'd been up on Observatory Hill properly before. It's actually a great view over north Sydney and as the sun goes down and the lights go on you can see the lights of Luna Park glittering away on the opposite side of the water.



The first fireworks began at 9pm, not long after it properly got dark. It was a short teaser of what was to come. Following that was the Harbour of Light parade on the harbour, where numerous ships decked out in light displays processed across the water.
We ate cherries and drank some gin and tonic and gathered more evidence for our theory that all Irish people know all other Irish people. We found some passing Danish people and forced Lise to talk to them (she is Danish), haha.

Suddenly midnight was upon us and we cracked out our sparkling wine and oohed and aahed in the appropriate places as gunpowder exploded on all sides. It was brilliant. And 2010 began.

After a lengthy slumber, we spent New Year's Day going to watch Fantastic Mr Fox at the cinema, which was almost as good as the fireworks!

[More photos as usual at Flickr]

New Year's Resolutions

I am usually terrible with making new year's resolution. I am terrified of failure, really. And I prefer not to commit to anything until at least March, by which time I am usually able to make a better informed assessment of my chances of success.
My 2009 resolutions were to keep giving up sucking my thumb (I am now 22 months thumb-sucking 'clean'!) and to write down every book I read. Both I managed. Here are this years.

- Knowledge: Become better informed. I already get the weekly Guardian Politics and Media podcasts, but I'm going to subscribe to the News and Culture ones as well for this year. And any important events I shall try to keep a brief commentary of in my paper-diary.

- Health: Go for a 45 minute run at least once a week. I am currently doing 2-3 runs a week so this should be ok. Also, stop creeping into the realms of a junk food diet. I eat healthily at home but we are eating out an increasing amount and I must remember that it still counts. Order fresh sashimi rather than tempura when eating sushi. Order poached eggs not scrambled for brunch. Get grilled fish not battered with my chips.

- Money: Try to save a decent amount of money whilst I still have a steady income. At least 25% of my weekly income must be moved into savings. I've been doing this since September so must continue!

- Write down every book I read. Again!

- Keep my scrapbook better. I have a huge pile of stuff to paste in and I never seem to get around to it!

Dah dah daaaah...bloody old news!!!

Happy Easter, one and all! Easter in Australia seems to be roughly the same as Easter in the UK, except for one fatal thing that we did not realise: EVERYTHING IS SHUT. Public holidays I find a little bit odd here because their trading laws seem quite strict. So whereas in UK one can potter around the shops a little and it's generally like a second Sunday, here pubs are about the only thing open. You can't even buy takeaway alcohol to drink quietly in your home on a bank holiday it seems, yet you can go to a pub. Which is greatly frustrating when trying to buy a bottle of wine on Not So Good Friday to take to a friend's birthday party.

BUT first, let me take you back to a pre-Easter era; no, not pre-Jesus, but the era of the weekend before Easter....if such a weekend can be considered an era.

The weather has been nothing recently if not damp. There have been some pleasant days but the weathermen seem intent on conspiring against me to make them fall on weekdays when I am, of course, in work. Last weekend was no exception; it was, for the most part, overwhelmingly damp. That is not to say it rained the whole time, fortunately, but there was a certain moistness to the air throughout.
On saturday we headed to a cafe in Pott's Point for a late late breakfast, then walked up to the water.



Then wandered around to Mrs Macquarie's Point, which is...well, exactly where it looks in the photo below; the next pointy out bit of headland to the east of the harbour, which offers some pleasant views.









View to the East, away from the harbour.

We wandered through to the Botanic Gardens where I enjoyed this Queensland Bottle Tree:



And was bemused by the topiary letters "sex and death" in front of the tropical pyramid:



We looked at the lovable bats, still roosting in great numbers (although they are sadly damaging many of the trees and need to be gently discouraged) and read a bat fact sheet from the visitor centre, which was interesting.

On Sunday, Mr L. Rogue, our friendly house platypus stowed away in my bag to investigate an exhibition on Charles Darwin, the advertising poster for which having suggested that he may have been of some import in the development of the notion of evolution. It was indeed an interesting exhibition, focussing on Darwin's voyage to Australia and how his findings there helped shape his theories. And indeed Mr L. Rogue and his kind did turn out to have been a bit important. When Darwin saw platypuses on his travels, he noted that it behaved in the same way as a water rat, in the same habitat as a water rat, and yet looked different. If God made everything, why put a water rat in some places and a platypus in another? Of course, the platypus and the water rat have both evolved and adapted to fit their specific environments. The platypus held himself up to be the embodiment of evolution. What a vain, and yet lovable platypus.

Temp bush ranger

Here I am in North Ryde! The accommodation up here is actually pretty nice, and it's good to have our own bathroom/kitchen again and not have to share. The house is nice and spacious, with big open plan area downstairs and bedroom, en suite and main bathroom upstairs - a nice change from two of us in one small double room! The downside we already knew about - it is literally in the middle of nowhere. There is a bus stop outside but there is only one bus an hour into the city for most of the day, and the nearest life is Macquarie University 20 minutes walk away. The Macquarie shopping centre is walkable too though, in about 30 minutes, and there are some pretty good shops there. Otherwise there is just a park on every block and a few houses.

We have been trying to make the best of it however. We explored the complimentary sauna facilities yesterday evening, which was lovely, and today we went to Mac Uni sports centre and played squash and then went swimming. I am horrific at squash, but then I am horrific at all sport except running, and the squash was ok so I shall go again I think. I am also horrific at swimming but it's fun to flap around.

On Friday I started my new illustrious career as a.... temp. Haha. I had a day assignment, and have work again for tomorrow and Tuesday this week. Going ok so far, and I am getting about £10 an hour, but I need to get a proper job asap really so I don't feel like a failure!
My Friday assignment was down in Pyrmont. I didn't realise how easy it was to get there (basically I didn't realise there was a bridge over Darling Harbour you could walk on), so I was there an hour early! Fortunately it was a nice day and it was nice wandering around on the wharf, so I took some pictures to entertain myself. So here is the view from Wharf 7 in Pyrmont at 7.30am on a winter's day, with the sun just rising over the Central Business District.

Shuffling around

This evening Mark and I are getting packed up as we leave the Glebe house tomorrow for another temporary home. At least we will soon have a more permanent home! As I mentioned a couple of posts back, we had our application accepted on the house in Meadowbank and put down a deposit on it last Saturday! Until we can move in on September 3rd, we will be in the Medina Executive Apartments. It looks pretty nice and is being paid for by Macquarie University out of Mark's relocation allowance. The downside is that it's in North Ryde (near Macquarie University), a dull suburban sprawl connected to the city only via a 40 minute bus ride. But, there are gym, sauna and swimming pool facilities, so hopefully I will be too busy getting wet to notice the surroundings too much.

Today Mark took the morning off work and we strolled around Glebe and Newtown, until it was time for a seminar he wanted to attend at the University of Sydney. We also had another poke around in Gould's Book Arcade on King Street, the most brilliant warehouse piled full of second hand books, where I acquired Nylon magazine and Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. That makes the second Nabokov novel I have bought in a week (the first being The Defence, found for $3 on a stall at Glebe Market) - the lesser known ones that I found hard to get hold of in the UK just keep appearing!

Here's a few pictures from around Glebe/Newtown:


View of the Central Business District.




On King Street, Newtown.


Mark in a cafe reading Nylon.