11 October 2018 at 7:35 pm (Surry Hills, Australia)
Sydney’s a city.
Sure, there’s a harbour, there are beaches, there’s the Opera House - but there’s also all the things that come with a large population trying to coexist on a small amount of land.
Traffic, construction, development - history getting plowed under for renewal and development, with little pockets saved by determined campaigning that, once in a while, succeeds in protecting the past…
5 October 2018 at 15:34 pm (Scarborough, England)
It’s fair to say that in the summer months every space is filled, every arcade becomes a cacophony of jangling coins clattering through the penny slots and the sands and promenade are brimming with visitors munching on ice cream and fish & chips as they walk with opportunistic seagulls circling overhead well into the evening.
But it’s no longer summer in Scarborough.
4 October 2018 at 4:21 pm (Surry Hills, Australia)
27 September 2018 at 9:33 pm (Surry Hills, Australia)
20 September 2018 at 10:28 pm (Surry Hills, Australia)
It’s not that I’ve led a double life. Not really.
It’s more like several, sequential, sometimes-overlapping (but often not) lives.
I was back in Canada recently, where my parents are (finally) starting to think about moving out of the home I grew up in.
But the side effect of that is, everything in the house has to go someplace else; so the things I left behind, when I went overseas “for a year” (in 1996), now need to be dealt with, sorted through, decided on. And, being a filer - someone who files things - I could hardly just throw everything out.
So one of those bags that came back from that trip was full of paper - and now it’s here. And it still needs to be dealt with…
13 September 2018 at 8:02 pm (Surry Hills, Australia)
Spring’s arriving.
Sydney’s warming up, flowers are blooming, and beaches are starting to fill up with sun-seekers, and even swimmers.
A birthday lunch on the north side of the bridge took us to the sandy shore, and the signs of the summer to come were everywhere to be seen.
The sun’s getting hard, again. The shadows are crisp and dark, without a cloud in the sky.
Spring’s arrived.
6 September 2018 at 3:40 pm (Surry Hills, Australia)
Sometimes, it's just the lines.
The intersections & collisions. The mix of new and old, of sun and shade, of hand-painted and computer-created - and, once in a while, a burst of something organic.
I guess because I've been away recently, the lines of Sydney are fresh to me again…
30 August 2018 at 5:08 pm (Surry Hills, Australia)
It's early. But I'm late.
People are off to work, I've got an appointment on the other side of our neighbourhood - but the light is good, and I can't help making myself just that little bit late as I walk.
Everyone else is rushing, but I go in fits and starts - I'm a fast walker any any time, but then I'll stop suddenly when something catches my eye, the shadows mingle, the angles line up, the dog has David Bowie eyes, whatever.
So I'm going at a relatively good pace; except, of course, when I'm not.
And...somehow, I've misjudged it…
25 August 2018 at 2:10 pm (Surry Hills, Australia)
A week is a long time in politics, and in life.
This time last week, we were in Canada, it was summer, the days were long - and we knew who was running the country back home in Australia.
Over the course of this week, we've spent 24h in transit, a week trying to adjust our internal clocks (finally with some success overnight); and 5 days watching our parliament being brought to a halt by internal struggles, and the party in charge attempting to choose a new leader - finally with some success overnight…