Cast List (no particular order)
Chopperdoc
Wife of Chopperdoc (Boss)
Daughter of Chopperdoc
Jan and Saul
Louise, Mark, Hugh and Archie
Kate and Bradley
Lucy, Paul and Imogen
Pippa and David
Annie and Paul
Jackie and Dixon
Dixon's mother
Allanah and Mary
Kate the receptionist
Charlotte the nursery chef
The Wiggles
Tokyo Girl Down Under
Jessica the hairdresser
Narelle the scary hairdresser
The girl in the flat upstairs
Weird man in Gourmet Pizza Kitchen
Steve and Scott (real names)
Steve's friend Laura (at the last minute)
and special thanks to Kath and Annette for flying 12,000 for guest appearances
Ella dressed by
Pumpkin Patch, Next, John Lewis and hand-me-downs from Rachel and Sarah (thank you and now have you got any winter stuff in age 2-3? please?)
Catering
Coles supermarket
Woolies (at a push)
Mr Chicken the charcoal chicken man, Belmore Road
Tum Thai, Alison Road
Jimbalayan, Avoca Street
Guillaume's at Bennelong (once)
Helga's Bread
Bondi Surf Seafoods
Chish and Fips, Coogee
The Wrong Cake
Michel's Patisserie
European Chocolate by
Sarah D
Natalie M
Louise O
Laraine B
Angela D
(Thank you)
Air transport courtesy of
British Airways
Qantas xx
Jetstar
NSW Air Ambulance
Chopperdoc and Chopperdoc International
Ground transport courtesy of
Volkswagen (UK)
Honda
Toyota
Silver Service Taxis (always on time)
Parking and Speeding Fines Payable to
State Debt Recovery Office
Skin Protection by
Nivea
Banana Boat
Zinc stick
Le Tan
The Cancer Council
Bright Bots kidswear
Suntan courtesy of
Enormous hole in the ozone layer
Hair colour by
You're joking? It's all my own
Sanity courtesy of
Bombay Sapphire
Banking by
NAB (The Never Again Bank)
Connection to the World
Telstra crackly lines and Big Pond snail internet
Pest Control and insect repellent courtesy of
Mortein bombs and sprays
Rid repellent
Frustration Mainly Supplied by
Australia Post
MMVIII Randwick Studios
(Most names were changed to protect the innocent).
Friday, 4 January 2008
It's All Good
Well, dear readers, it's been quite a story, but all stories have a last page and this is ours.
And what a year.
For ten years we dreamed of coming to live down under and at times we didn't think it would ever come off. The mortgage was too big, Ella was too little, there were too many obstacles in the way. Then one day Darren came home and we sat down and he said, well, this was it, it was now or never. And I said, yeah, alright, let's do it and he started filling in the forms and applying for the jobs. And even when he was having telephone interviews at 2am and I was sitting at the top on the stairs listening in, it still all felt like a dream of ours that wouldn't really come off, like something that other people did and not us.
Our year in Australia is over and I don't have any words to describe how devastated I am about it, not just because we're swapping Australia for the UK but because something we always wanted to do has been done and it's no longer there to dream about. We had a pot of money we used to call the Australia fund and now it's gone and I suppose we'll close the account.
We came to Sydney willingly, we're returning because we have to. Who knows, perhaps another six months would have been enough; another winter in Sydney, one more cockroach in the fridge, one more no right turn, we'll never find out, but right now, I feel like I'm about to lose something I can't do without and I have that horrible lurching feeling you get when something terrible's going to happen, a sort of emptiness in the middle of your chest. I'm not done with Sydney and I'm not done with Australia, not ever.
I'm incredibly glad we came, despite all of the reservations that were (or became) obvious during 2006. Living and working abroad has been one of those life-changing, horizon-broadening experiences, akin to going away to university or having your first child, and I don't think there's any obstacle too high to justify not having a stab at an experience like this if the opportunity's there. They say you regret the things you don't do in life, and I'd certainly have regretted not doing this (though I wasn't always so sure at the time). We were incredibly lucky that Darren's job gave us an opportunity and I'll always be thankful for that, no matter where we decide we'll live, be it Reading or Randwick.
In the time we've been away, two babies have been born, three friends have sold their houses, there's been one wedding, one marriage break up and a friend diagnosed with leukaemia. Life moves on without you and you begin to wonder how it would be if you left forever, who would keep in touch? Who'd come to visit (and how long could you put up with them for anyway?). You realise you have a choice, you've reached a crossroads like one of those books where you choose the ending, and whichever one you choose you can't help wondering how the other one ended up and did you make the right decision. It's like having the chance of two parallel lives.
Australia is a fantastic continent, a big burnt earth of a place in orange and blue, colours and sounds which are indescribable, a sky that's immense. Everything in Australia's the wrong way around, Christmas is in the summer, the trees shred bark, not leaves, the animals have developed in isolation, so they're unique. Birds giggle, mammals lay eggs, I mean, somebody's having a laugh.
It has always felt to me that Australia, as a land, has a soul and character of it's own, far removed from the white (or yellow) people who live here, or even the aborgines (who actually came down from Asia). The image of Australia we've grown up to recognise does no justice to the place, and neither does a two week holiday on the east coast, nice as that might be. There's something about the light and the rock that goes to form the land that I find deeply moving and I suppose over the years it's taken on something of a spiritual sense to me, something it's not always easy to connect with when you're living in a big city like Sydney, though if you go to the coast and stand underneath the sandstone you can sort of get close.
At times I've tried to work out why I feel the way I feel. Perhaps I was an aborigine in a former life (though probably not. They wore fish guts on their heads to keep the flies away, which would play havoc with my colour (and anyway, how does that keep flies away?)). Or maybe I was one of those female convicts who came here on the first fleet and got all boozed up and debauched on the night they were finally allowed to get off the ship (though again, petty thievery's not really my style). Perhaps it's because my great granny used to send me a dollar bill on my birthday and I thought I'd get to meet her if I dug for long enough in the back garden, I don't know. I just feel I belong here, which isn't the same as saying I'm going to live here, but it's hard to live on the opposite side of the world from the place you feel your heart wants to be.
I suppose in most ways, the year abroad has been what I thought it would be. I knew we'd travel, though we didn't stick to our list and we visited places we hadn't previously considered. I hadn't realised how difficult the travelling would be, how hard it would be to plan around Ella, how many compromises we'd have to make. One of the biggest was the expense; a third (full price) plane ticket wherever we went. A two bedroomed apartment instead of a single hotel room; it all adds up. And wherever we went, we couldn't really go out at night, so I can tell you all about Melbourne but I can't tell you how it shapes up after dark because I just don't know, which is a shame.
I also hadn't realised how hard it would be to cope alone with a toddler; how much our moods would rub off on her. If we were stressed, she was stressed, and though I was aware of it, there was little we could do at times to reduce the level of difficulty we were experiencing or to reduce it's impact on her. I often felt guilty (particularly in the early days) that we'd dragged her along like some sort of accessory so we could fulfill our dream; a dream we planned years beforehand, one that didn't include a third passenger. Perhaps we were bad parents because we didn't stay in the UK and stick to her nice routine, we dragged her away from everything she knew and put her in a new environment that was so different from the last. Of course, I know now that she's benefitted from it, but it wasn't always easy to be objective.
At times I've thought, you know, we ought to have done this before, we ought to have done this before we had children, and I'm not going to pretend I feel otherwise because looking back, yes, we should have done it beforehand and if I could do things all over again then I'd have done it in my twenties, without a doubt.
I could think of a hundred ways to put a positive spin on having brought Ella, and I genuinely believe most of them but as I've always been honest in my writing then I've nothing to lose by saying yeah, it would have been a much better experience for us if we'd done it without a child. We would both have worked full-time and with no nursery fees, we could have afforded a better place to live, a much better standard of living, nights out without a $100 babysitting bill. I might also have felt less isolated.
On the other hand, for Ella, I think it's been a life shaping experience and as her mum, I'm proud we were able to offer her that, even if it turns out to have been for just a year. She loves the outdoors, she's grown like a weed, swum like a fish and (at times) whined like a dingo, but as the aussies would say, it's all good. I just hope the life-shaping bit doesn't include a profound need to return or any sort of sense of belonging here, not just because I don't want her to face the heartbreaking (either way) decision we have to face, but because, you know, if we stay in the UK and she decides to emigrate, well I'd be devastated. And I only know four verses of Tie Me Kangaroo Down.
Anyway, thanks for reading, it's been nice having you along, but let's get outta here, eh? Would I do it over again? Yes. Do I want to? Thanks, but no, I'd really rather not.
Start the engines, we're coming home.
nb It's All Good, phrase, A phrase used (liberally) by Australians because they can't think of a better way to end a conversation (Colloq.)
And what a year.
For ten years we dreamed of coming to live down under and at times we didn't think it would ever come off. The mortgage was too big, Ella was too little, there were too many obstacles in the way. Then one day Darren came home and we sat down and he said, well, this was it, it was now or never. And I said, yeah, alright, let's do it and he started filling in the forms and applying for the jobs. And even when he was having telephone interviews at 2am and I was sitting at the top on the stairs listening in, it still all felt like a dream of ours that wouldn't really come off, like something that other people did and not us.
Our year in Australia is over and I don't have any words to describe how devastated I am about it, not just because we're swapping Australia for the UK but because something we always wanted to do has been done and it's no longer there to dream about. We had a pot of money we used to call the Australia fund and now it's gone and I suppose we'll close the account.
We came to Sydney willingly, we're returning because we have to. Who knows, perhaps another six months would have been enough; another winter in Sydney, one more cockroach in the fridge, one more no right turn, we'll never find out, but right now, I feel like I'm about to lose something I can't do without and I have that horrible lurching feeling you get when something terrible's going to happen, a sort of emptiness in the middle of your chest. I'm not done with Sydney and I'm not done with Australia, not ever.
I'm incredibly glad we came, despite all of the reservations that were (or became) obvious during 2006. Living and working abroad has been one of those life-changing, horizon-broadening experiences, akin to going away to university or having your first child, and I don't think there's any obstacle too high to justify not having a stab at an experience like this if the opportunity's there. They say you regret the things you don't do in life, and I'd certainly have regretted not doing this (though I wasn't always so sure at the time). We were incredibly lucky that Darren's job gave us an opportunity and I'll always be thankful for that, no matter where we decide we'll live, be it Reading or Randwick.
In the time we've been away, two babies have been born, three friends have sold their houses, there's been one wedding, one marriage break up and a friend diagnosed with leukaemia. Life moves on without you and you begin to wonder how it would be if you left forever, who would keep in touch? Who'd come to visit (and how long could you put up with them for anyway?). You realise you have a choice, you've reached a crossroads like one of those books where you choose the ending, and whichever one you choose you can't help wondering how the other one ended up and did you make the right decision. It's like having the chance of two parallel lives.
Australia is a fantastic continent, a big burnt earth of a place in orange and blue, colours and sounds which are indescribable, a sky that's immense. Everything in Australia's the wrong way around, Christmas is in the summer, the trees shred bark, not leaves, the animals have developed in isolation, so they're unique. Birds giggle, mammals lay eggs, I mean, somebody's having a laugh.
It has always felt to me that Australia, as a land, has a soul and character of it's own, far removed from the white (or yellow) people who live here, or even the aborgines (who actually came down from Asia). The image of Australia we've grown up to recognise does no justice to the place, and neither does a two week holiday on the east coast, nice as that might be. There's something about the light and the rock that goes to form the land that I find deeply moving and I suppose over the years it's taken on something of a spiritual sense to me, something it's not always easy to connect with when you're living in a big city like Sydney, though if you go to the coast and stand underneath the sandstone you can sort of get close.
At times I've tried to work out why I feel the way I feel. Perhaps I was an aborigine in a former life (though probably not. They wore fish guts on their heads to keep the flies away, which would play havoc with my colour (and anyway, how does that keep flies away?)). Or maybe I was one of those female convicts who came here on the first fleet and got all boozed up and debauched on the night they were finally allowed to get off the ship (though again, petty thievery's not really my style). Perhaps it's because my great granny used to send me a dollar bill on my birthday and I thought I'd get to meet her if I dug for long enough in the back garden, I don't know. I just feel I belong here, which isn't the same as saying I'm going to live here, but it's hard to live on the opposite side of the world from the place you feel your heart wants to be.
I suppose in most ways, the year abroad has been what I thought it would be. I knew we'd travel, though we didn't stick to our list and we visited places we hadn't previously considered. I hadn't realised how difficult the travelling would be, how hard it would be to plan around Ella, how many compromises we'd have to make. One of the biggest was the expense; a third (full price) plane ticket wherever we went. A two bedroomed apartment instead of a single hotel room; it all adds up. And wherever we went, we couldn't really go out at night, so I can tell you all about Melbourne but I can't tell you how it shapes up after dark because I just don't know, which is a shame.
I also hadn't realised how hard it would be to cope alone with a toddler; how much our moods would rub off on her. If we were stressed, she was stressed, and though I was aware of it, there was little we could do at times to reduce the level of difficulty we were experiencing or to reduce it's impact on her. I often felt guilty (particularly in the early days) that we'd dragged her along like some sort of accessory so we could fulfill our dream; a dream we planned years beforehand, one that didn't include a third passenger. Perhaps we were bad parents because we didn't stay in the UK and stick to her nice routine, we dragged her away from everything she knew and put her in a new environment that was so different from the last. Of course, I know now that she's benefitted from it, but it wasn't always easy to be objective.
At times I've thought, you know, we ought to have done this before, we ought to have done this before we had children, and I'm not going to pretend I feel otherwise because looking back, yes, we should have done it beforehand and if I could do things all over again then I'd have done it in my twenties, without a doubt.
I could think of a hundred ways to put a positive spin on having brought Ella, and I genuinely believe most of them but as I've always been honest in my writing then I've nothing to lose by saying yeah, it would have been a much better experience for us if we'd done it without a child. We would both have worked full-time and with no nursery fees, we could have afforded a better place to live, a much better standard of living, nights out without a $100 babysitting bill. I might also have felt less isolated.
On the other hand, for Ella, I think it's been a life shaping experience and as her mum, I'm proud we were able to offer her that, even if it turns out to have been for just a year. She loves the outdoors, she's grown like a weed, swum like a fish and (at times) whined like a dingo, but as the aussies would say, it's all good. I just hope the life-shaping bit doesn't include a profound need to return or any sort of sense of belonging here, not just because I don't want her to face the heartbreaking (either way) decision we have to face, but because, you know, if we stay in the UK and she decides to emigrate, well I'd be devastated. And I only know four verses of Tie Me Kangaroo Down.
Anyway, thanks for reading, it's been nice having you along, but let's get outta here, eh? Would I do it over again? Yes. Do I want to? Thanks, but no, I'd really rather not.
Start the engines, we're coming home.
nb It's All Good, phrase, A phrase used (liberally) by Australians because they can't think of a better way to end a conversation (Colloq.)
60/40
Near the end of the blog, we drove across the harbour to meet Jan and Saul at Oceanworld in Manly. Oceanworld's not a patch on Sydney Aquarium, but we've never been there, which seems a glaring omission really, given everywhere else we have been.
It's incredible, really that I've found any energy to do anything this week, let alone go off to Oceanworld with Ella. We've been very busy posting adverts and responding to adverts and sticking flyers through letterboxes in an attempt to flog our house and home. On Wednesday I replied to an online advert from a bloke who wanted to buy a gas barbeque with a bottle of gas and some tools. "We have exactly that" I wrote, "for $150".
"Sorry" he replied. "My budget's only $50, but could I borrow it for the weekend?". He was being very Australian, of course, so in keeping with the tone I replied "don't reckon" and left it at that. These colonials have the cheek of their forefathers, and you know what happened to them.
Jan's parents are visiting from Cheshire at the moment. Her mother, Annie, had cancer a few years ago, which recurred a couple of years after that, but has been held at bay ever since. They've applied to the Australian government for residency several times because they fulfill the requirements set out for retiring to Australia (which include having 50% of your children permanent residents and knowing all five verses of Tie Me Kangaroo Down, including the one they banned). However, because of Annie's health history, they've repeatedly been knocked back and though Jan always says she thinks they'll eventually be able to sell up and emigrate, they told me a different story when I asked them last week.
When I met Jan outside the ferry wharf this morning she seemed distracted. Her parents had come along with her and they were busy ordering coffee and croissants to take away from the Laurent bakery at the end of the jetty. Jan's father, Paul, is a tall, distinguished-looking man with arresting blue eyes that he's passed to his daughter, who's passed them onto Saul. The family resemblence is so strong that it's hard to see where her mum fits into all this because I've looked at her from every angle now and I can't spot a single likeness.
Paul was a businessman in his earlier life. His company made the sort of parasols you fix onto prams and pushchairs for the seventeen minutes of annual sunshine we get in the UK. The company was based in Manchester, which makes it even more astonishing that it managed to thrive, but thrive it did and he made enough money to send all three children to private school. Later in life he became an expert on computer systems, which seems a bit of a turn around, but back then computers were comparatively newfangled and nobody really knew much about them at all because, well, there wasn't that much to know.
Anyway, eventually he retired and took up a position on the non-executive board of an NHS Trust. All in all he's had fingers in many pies. He's absolutely delightful company and so is Annie, both of them entirely posh and entirely forthright, the sort that don't suffer fools.
"My mother is sick" said Jan. She had one eye on me and another on them, checking they were out of earshot. "She went for a scan before they came out to Sydney, a regular check up. The scan of her liver showed a problem"
"What sort of problem?"
"We don't know 100%" she said, "but they said her liver wasn't clear"
"You mean they couldn't view it properly?" I asked, glancing over at Annie, who was jabbing her finger at a pain au raisin behind the glass counter, pronouncing it in an accent so precise you'd have thought we were in the backstreets of the Marais.
Jan relaxed a little. "Pain au raisin" she said, looking back at her mum. "They call them snail cakes in Australia. It drives my mother mad. No. I mean, it's not clear of cancer. And if it's what they think, then that's it"
"It's terminal?" I replied
"Yes. Twelve months, she thinks. She told me when my dad had gone shopping. She hasn't told my brother and I haven't told anyone else. I'm telling you"
I looked at Jan. She's a tall girl, a qualified lawyer two years older than me, with strawberry blonde hair and fair skin. In many ways she seems to have the same strength as her father, yet at times she seems so sad and far away and if I'd known her much longer I'd probably have got to the bottom of it by now. She has cuts on her arms. I've never asked about them and she hasn't told me, but today when she told me about her mother I felt as close to her as I've felt to any of my friends in the UK, even the ones I've known since school, as though she'd exposed every vunerability she had.
"God I'm sorry" I said. "How are you?"
"Weird. It's so weird. She's being really stoic. She says, you know I've had a good life and I think, no, don't say that . It never occurred to me she wouldn't see Saul grow up, wouldn't see him in his school uniform. And the thing that I keep thinking about is that he's only two. If she really does, you know, this year, then he won't remember her. He'll have no memories of her, will he?"
I didn't know what to say. No, he won't remember her. There's nothing else to add to that, no silver lining, so I didn't even try.
"How's your Dad?"
"He's not talking about it. Says that until we know exactly what we're dealing with then it's business as usual. Look, you won't say anything will you? Even my brother doesn't know". Annie and Paul were coming back from the bakery, the 10.40 catamaran just pulling alongside the jetty bringing more shiny happy tourists, like them.
"Of course not" I said, "I wouldn't ever".
"Pain au Raisin!" announced Annie as she reached us. "Not snail cake, for goodness sake".
"Oh don't get me started" I said, trying to switch my mood. "I heard an advert on the radio as I was driving here for a furniture company that's having a sale. They're selling chase lounges, apparently"
"What's one of those?" asked Paul, tearing his snail cake in half.
"Well I think the french would call them a chaise longue, but what do we Europeans know?"
All three of them winced, particularly Jan, who studied French and business. "And there's a shop in the QVB selling homewares from Provence" I said. It's really nice stuff, Les Olivades clothes, Valdrome napkins, but the woman who owns the shop refers to the stuff as provincial and not provencale and now I can't go in there because she's ruined it for me".
Annie laughed. "Jan misses France, don't you Jan?"
"Yeah" she replied. "I miss Europe generally, but it was worth the swap, on balance"
"And will you miss France?" asked Annie
"Well we haven't said we're emigrating" I replied. "We're a bit 50/50". And as I said it I thought no, we're 60/40 against. A moment of clarity, the first I'd had in ages. We're 60/40 against.
But how could I say that in front of Jan? Jan thinks we're coming back. She's just told me her mother is probably dying, she doesn't need to hear I'm 60/40 against.
Oceanworld turned out to be perfect for Ella and Saul, not too crowded, not too big. We emerged after an hour and they both fell asleep in their pushchairs so Paul said he'd treat us to lunch. We parked ourselves up in a restaurant on the seafront, the roar of the huge swelling ocean nature's background music.
"I don't know what's holding you back about coming here" said Annie as we were waiting for our food to arrive. The food took an age and Paul had called over a waitress to investigate.
"Look, we've waited half an hour" he said, "could you enquire about the delay and hurry things along". So delightfully posh. Annie was fiddling with an enormous ruby and diamond ring on her right hand.
"It's nothing like Fishers at Kirribilli" she commented, sniffing. Fishers is a posh seafood restaurant just over the harbour bridge. Annie and Paul are regular customers, so regular that the owner sends them a Christmas card to their home in Cheshire.
"The lady who owns Fishers is a lovely woman. She's just had a baby and I've brought her some little clothes from Marks and Spencer but goodness knows whether they'll fit. I never buy first size"
"I love your ring" I said, changing the subject so we wouldn't have to return to the 60/40. "Was it your ruby anniversary?"
"No, it belonged to my mother. My father bought it for their ruby wedding because he asked me what my mother would like and I said "a ruby, probably" and I was right. She left it to me when she died"
Jan shot me a look. I shot it back without thinking then hoped her parents hadn't noticed.
"But really, Sarah, if I were you I'd come. You're young enough"
"I'm 35" I replied
"No age at all" said Annie. "And I'll tell you what, I wish I had my time again because I'd have brought all of my children to grow up here and be retired here myself now, which we'd planned to do, but there you are. Not everything goes to plan. It's your life, not somebody else's. You must lead your lives for yourselves".
I sometimes think people who are facing their own mortality have a clarity we can't otherwise find, and what a pity to find it at that stage, when it might have been useful earlier. They have a knack of seeing to the heart of things and leaving an impression through something they've said or done. I know Annie has that same clarity while those around her are losing theirs.
I'm still 60/40 but I hear what she's saying and I'll probably hear her saying it for a long time to come.
It's incredible, really that I've found any energy to do anything this week, let alone go off to Oceanworld with Ella. We've been very busy posting adverts and responding to adverts and sticking flyers through letterboxes in an attempt to flog our house and home. On Wednesday I replied to an online advert from a bloke who wanted to buy a gas barbeque with a bottle of gas and some tools. "We have exactly that" I wrote, "for $150".
"Sorry" he replied. "My budget's only $50, but could I borrow it for the weekend?". He was being very Australian, of course, so in keeping with the tone I replied "don't reckon" and left it at that. These colonials have the cheek of their forefathers, and you know what happened to them.
Jan's parents are visiting from Cheshire at the moment. Her mother, Annie, had cancer a few years ago, which recurred a couple of years after that, but has been held at bay ever since. They've applied to the Australian government for residency several times because they fulfill the requirements set out for retiring to Australia (which include having 50% of your children permanent residents and knowing all five verses of Tie Me Kangaroo Down, including the one they banned). However, because of Annie's health history, they've repeatedly been knocked back and though Jan always says she thinks they'll eventually be able to sell up and emigrate, they told me a different story when I asked them last week.
When I met Jan outside the ferry wharf this morning she seemed distracted. Her parents had come along with her and they were busy ordering coffee and croissants to take away from the Laurent bakery at the end of the jetty. Jan's father, Paul, is a tall, distinguished-looking man with arresting blue eyes that he's passed to his daughter, who's passed them onto Saul. The family resemblence is so strong that it's hard to see where her mum fits into all this because I've looked at her from every angle now and I can't spot a single likeness.
Paul was a businessman in his earlier life. His company made the sort of parasols you fix onto prams and pushchairs for the seventeen minutes of annual sunshine we get in the UK. The company was based in Manchester, which makes it even more astonishing that it managed to thrive, but thrive it did and he made enough money to send all three children to private school. Later in life he became an expert on computer systems, which seems a bit of a turn around, but back then computers were comparatively newfangled and nobody really knew much about them at all because, well, there wasn't that much to know.
Anyway, eventually he retired and took up a position on the non-executive board of an NHS Trust. All in all he's had fingers in many pies. He's absolutely delightful company and so is Annie, both of them entirely posh and entirely forthright, the sort that don't suffer fools.
"My mother is sick" said Jan. She had one eye on me and another on them, checking they were out of earshot. "She went for a scan before they came out to Sydney, a regular check up. The scan of her liver showed a problem"
"What sort of problem?"
"We don't know 100%" she said, "but they said her liver wasn't clear"
"You mean they couldn't view it properly?" I asked, glancing over at Annie, who was jabbing her finger at a pain au raisin behind the glass counter, pronouncing it in an accent so precise you'd have thought we were in the backstreets of the Marais.
Jan relaxed a little. "Pain au raisin" she said, looking back at her mum. "They call them snail cakes in Australia. It drives my mother mad. No. I mean, it's not clear of cancer. And if it's what they think, then that's it"
"It's terminal?" I replied
"Yes. Twelve months, she thinks. She told me when my dad had gone shopping. She hasn't told my brother and I haven't told anyone else. I'm telling you"
I looked at Jan. She's a tall girl, a qualified lawyer two years older than me, with strawberry blonde hair and fair skin. In many ways she seems to have the same strength as her father, yet at times she seems so sad and far away and if I'd known her much longer I'd probably have got to the bottom of it by now. She has cuts on her arms. I've never asked about them and she hasn't told me, but today when she told me about her mother I felt as close to her as I've felt to any of my friends in the UK, even the ones I've known since school, as though she'd exposed every vunerability she had.
"God I'm sorry" I said. "How are you?"
"Weird. It's so weird. She's being really stoic. She says, you know I've had a good life and I think, no, don't say that . It never occurred to me she wouldn't see Saul grow up, wouldn't see him in his school uniform. And the thing that I keep thinking about is that he's only two. If she really does, you know, this year, then he won't remember her. He'll have no memories of her, will he?"
I didn't know what to say. No, he won't remember her. There's nothing else to add to that, no silver lining, so I didn't even try.
"How's your Dad?"
"He's not talking about it. Says that until we know exactly what we're dealing with then it's business as usual. Look, you won't say anything will you? Even my brother doesn't know". Annie and Paul were coming back from the bakery, the 10.40 catamaran just pulling alongside the jetty bringing more shiny happy tourists, like them.
"Of course not" I said, "I wouldn't ever".
"Pain au Raisin!" announced Annie as she reached us. "Not snail cake, for goodness sake".
"Oh don't get me started" I said, trying to switch my mood. "I heard an advert on the radio as I was driving here for a furniture company that's having a sale. They're selling chase lounges, apparently"
"What's one of those?" asked Paul, tearing his snail cake in half.
"Well I think the french would call them a chaise longue, but what do we Europeans know?"
All three of them winced, particularly Jan, who studied French and business. "And there's a shop in the QVB selling homewares from Provence" I said. It's really nice stuff, Les Olivades clothes, Valdrome napkins, but the woman who owns the shop refers to the stuff as provincial and not provencale and now I can't go in there because she's ruined it for me".
Annie laughed. "Jan misses France, don't you Jan?"
"Yeah" she replied. "I miss Europe generally, but it was worth the swap, on balance"
"And will you miss France?" asked Annie
"Well we haven't said we're emigrating" I replied. "We're a bit 50/50". And as I said it I thought no, we're 60/40 against. A moment of clarity, the first I'd had in ages. We're 60/40 against.
But how could I say that in front of Jan? Jan thinks we're coming back. She's just told me her mother is probably dying, she doesn't need to hear I'm 60/40 against.
Oceanworld turned out to be perfect for Ella and Saul, not too crowded, not too big. We emerged after an hour and they both fell asleep in their pushchairs so Paul said he'd treat us to lunch. We parked ourselves up in a restaurant on the seafront, the roar of the huge swelling ocean nature's background music.
"I don't know what's holding you back about coming here" said Annie as we were waiting for our food to arrive. The food took an age and Paul had called over a waitress to investigate.
"Look, we've waited half an hour" he said, "could you enquire about the delay and hurry things along". So delightfully posh. Annie was fiddling with an enormous ruby and diamond ring on her right hand.
"It's nothing like Fishers at Kirribilli" she commented, sniffing. Fishers is a posh seafood restaurant just over the harbour bridge. Annie and Paul are regular customers, so regular that the owner sends them a Christmas card to their home in Cheshire.
"The lady who owns Fishers is a lovely woman. She's just had a baby and I've brought her some little clothes from Marks and Spencer but goodness knows whether they'll fit. I never buy first size"
"I love your ring" I said, changing the subject so we wouldn't have to return to the 60/40. "Was it your ruby anniversary?"
"No, it belonged to my mother. My father bought it for their ruby wedding because he asked me what my mother would like and I said "a ruby, probably" and I was right. She left it to me when she died"
Jan shot me a look. I shot it back without thinking then hoped her parents hadn't noticed.
"But really, Sarah, if I were you I'd come. You're young enough"
"I'm 35" I replied
"No age at all" said Annie. "And I'll tell you what, I wish I had my time again because I'd have brought all of my children to grow up here and be retired here myself now, which we'd planned to do, but there you are. Not everything goes to plan. It's your life, not somebody else's. You must lead your lives for yourselves".
I sometimes think people who are facing their own mortality have a clarity we can't otherwise find, and what a pity to find it at that stage, when it might have been useful earlier. They have a knack of seeing to the heart of things and leaving an impression through something they've said or done. I know Annie has that same clarity while those around her are losing theirs.
I'm still 60/40 but I hear what she's saying and I'll probably hear her saying it for a long time to come.
Pizza
I was in the kitchen this evening listening to the news on Channel 9 as it floated across from the telly. We call it "vague news" because they give you the bare bones of a story without explaining anything in any detail. Tonight, for example, they were reporting on the huge swells down the east coast which have led to the beaches in Sydney being completely closed. It never struck me before I came here that whole beaches could actually be closed, but the same thing happened when there was a tsunami alert in the Solomon Islands a few months ago and the beaches have been closed on and off all this week as well.
But there was no real explanation of why the sea is so enormous at the moment, just lots of shots of surfers and idiot kids throwing themselves into the water along Sydney's northern beaches, finding themselves covered in blood when they hit the reefs. At Tweed Heads on the Gold Coast, some sort of huge orange froth has been generated and it's so spectacular that the people trying to swim in it look as though they're sitting in a sea of foam for comic relief, though once again there's no explanation, just the amused expression on the face of the newsreader, who looks as though he's about to say "fancy that" and shake his head.
Now if this was the BBC there would be a complicated swirly diagram about sea currents and some sort of special report from a special reporter in a special location dangerously close to the edge of a cliff, you know, just waiting for it all to go wrong so he can wind up on It'll be Alright on the Night . I can only conclude that the aussies simply aren't bothered about the reasons why, just like they don't need to know much detail about the weather forecast (and don't bat an eyelid when it's completely wrong). Perhaps they're too busy getting outside and enjoying the summer, I don't know, but being British, this sort of shoddiness really winds me up and I realise now how much we take for granted the quality of television broadcasting in the UK.
Anyway, I also heard on the news that the engineers at Qantas are threatening to go on strike though I haven't the first idea what it's all about because all I heard was Qantas and strike and I immediately looked over at Darren with my fingers crossed in the air and said "we can only hope".
We'd just come in from sitting by the pool, where Ella had been practising throwing herself into the water. She's got some really smart Speedo goggles now with a strap that adjusts by pressing a button at the back, and being able to open her eyes under the water seems to have increased her overall confidence, even if she's started to look like Biggles. And we've let some air out of her arm bands as well, which means she has to work a bit harder to stay afloat. The result is a little girl who's fast learning to swim.
"You know what?" I said to Darren. "If we weren't going back to complete your training and if we didn't have a property in Britain, I'd have torn up the return portion of our tickets by now. I'd be staying. I mean, we're just starting to feel like we've got a circle of friends and I feel more settled. They say the first two years are the hardest and I'd be thinking, well, we've got through a whole year so let's just carry on".
He swam over to the side of the pool and rested his chin on his arms.
"What about you?" I asked.
"Yeah" he replied, not needing very long to think about it. "Everything you just said. Liz told me the VMO doctors are earning half a million dollars a year without private work. I don't know how much of it's true, I hear all sorts of stories. Perhaps you're just feeling like you want to stay because we're leaving. Are you?"
"I don't know, maybe. What about you?"
"I don't know either"
A few minutes later we were joined in the pool by a British girl who lives in the block next to ours. She has a daughter of 22 months and used to be a fund raiser in London until she was headhunted to do the same job here in Sydney. They arrived from London back in April and with her contract due to run out in March, she's trying to decide whether to stay on for longer. I asked her which way she was currently swaying.
"I really don't know" she replied. "I think it's such a great life for the kids here. Mica spends so much time outside here in Australia. In Britain she was always indoors, never so much as walked barefoot on grass, I don't think. And look at your little girl in the water there, look at her confidence"
"I know" I replied. "And if you could ship all of my friends here, no question. If you could move this place to Europe, no question. It's so far away though, so far that it might as well be a whole lifetime away"
"That's the thing" she said. "We really miss our friends. And we were in the Botanical Gardens yesterday and I thought, yeah okay, this is beautiful, but you know what? It's not as beautiful as walking down the south bank of the Thames from Borough Market"
"And how have you enjoyed work?" asked Darren
"Well" she replied, hesitating. "The standard isn't as high as in the UK. The quality of people's work isn't as high. You can't say it though, you have to be careful who you say that to, you know?"
Darren nodded in recognition. "The thing I've noticed is that people get promoted very quickly. Perhaps there's not the competition, I don't know, but they do a job for a little while and get promoted, which sort of carries an assumption they were good at the previous job or that they have the skills to do the next job up the ladder, which isn't always true. People progress quickly in their careers but it seems based on thin air so there's no real solid base to anything. Of course, you can't say that to them, you just think it"
"Like the buildings" I chipped in. "There's an awful lot of facade"
"What's for tea?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Let's order a pizza from Dominoes" replied Darren. We never order pizza. We've never ordered pizza in all the time we've been here. It's a reflection of how we're feeling; tired, upset, unsure about our future. Pizza seems like the bottom line, really. We're in pizza mode from now until next weekend.
But there was no real explanation of why the sea is so enormous at the moment, just lots of shots of surfers and idiot kids throwing themselves into the water along Sydney's northern beaches, finding themselves covered in blood when they hit the reefs. At Tweed Heads on the Gold Coast, some sort of huge orange froth has been generated and it's so spectacular that the people trying to swim in it look as though they're sitting in a sea of foam for comic relief, though once again there's no explanation, just the amused expression on the face of the newsreader, who looks as though he's about to say "fancy that" and shake his head.
Now if this was the BBC there would be a complicated swirly diagram about sea currents and some sort of special report from a special reporter in a special location dangerously close to the edge of a cliff, you know, just waiting for it all to go wrong so he can wind up on It'll be Alright on the Night . I can only conclude that the aussies simply aren't bothered about the reasons why, just like they don't need to know much detail about the weather forecast (and don't bat an eyelid when it's completely wrong). Perhaps they're too busy getting outside and enjoying the summer, I don't know, but being British, this sort of shoddiness really winds me up and I realise now how much we take for granted the quality of television broadcasting in the UK.
Anyway, I also heard on the news that the engineers at Qantas are threatening to go on strike though I haven't the first idea what it's all about because all I heard was Qantas and strike and I immediately looked over at Darren with my fingers crossed in the air and said "we can only hope".
We'd just come in from sitting by the pool, where Ella had been practising throwing herself into the water. She's got some really smart Speedo goggles now with a strap that adjusts by pressing a button at the back, and being able to open her eyes under the water seems to have increased her overall confidence, even if she's started to look like Biggles. And we've let some air out of her arm bands as well, which means she has to work a bit harder to stay afloat. The result is a little girl who's fast learning to swim.
"You know what?" I said to Darren. "If we weren't going back to complete your training and if we didn't have a property in Britain, I'd have torn up the return portion of our tickets by now. I'd be staying. I mean, we're just starting to feel like we've got a circle of friends and I feel more settled. They say the first two years are the hardest and I'd be thinking, well, we've got through a whole year so let's just carry on".
He swam over to the side of the pool and rested his chin on his arms.
"What about you?" I asked.
"Yeah" he replied, not needing very long to think about it. "Everything you just said. Liz told me the VMO doctors are earning half a million dollars a year without private work. I don't know how much of it's true, I hear all sorts of stories. Perhaps you're just feeling like you want to stay because we're leaving. Are you?"
"I don't know, maybe. What about you?"
"I don't know either"
A few minutes later we were joined in the pool by a British girl who lives in the block next to ours. She has a daughter of 22 months and used to be a fund raiser in London until she was headhunted to do the same job here in Sydney. They arrived from London back in April and with her contract due to run out in March, she's trying to decide whether to stay on for longer. I asked her which way she was currently swaying.
"I really don't know" she replied. "I think it's such a great life for the kids here. Mica spends so much time outside here in Australia. In Britain she was always indoors, never so much as walked barefoot on grass, I don't think. And look at your little girl in the water there, look at her confidence"
"I know" I replied. "And if you could ship all of my friends here, no question. If you could move this place to Europe, no question. It's so far away though, so far that it might as well be a whole lifetime away"
"That's the thing" she said. "We really miss our friends. And we were in the Botanical Gardens yesterday and I thought, yeah okay, this is beautiful, but you know what? It's not as beautiful as walking down the south bank of the Thames from Borough Market"
"And how have you enjoyed work?" asked Darren
"Well" she replied, hesitating. "The standard isn't as high as in the UK. The quality of people's work isn't as high. You can't say it though, you have to be careful who you say that to, you know?"
Darren nodded in recognition. "The thing I've noticed is that people get promoted very quickly. Perhaps there's not the competition, I don't know, but they do a job for a little while and get promoted, which sort of carries an assumption they were good at the previous job or that they have the skills to do the next job up the ladder, which isn't always true. People progress quickly in their careers but it seems based on thin air so there's no real solid base to anything. Of course, you can't say that to them, you just think it"
"Like the buildings" I chipped in. "There's an awful lot of facade"
"What's for tea?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Let's order a pizza from Dominoes" replied Darren. We never order pizza. We've never ordered pizza in all the time we've been here. It's a reflection of how we're feeling; tired, upset, unsure about our future. Pizza seems like the bottom line, really. We're in pizza mode from now until next weekend.
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Just Not Cricket
I was thinking today as I was walking along the road towards the SCG that it must be almost twenty years since I went to a test match on my own, and I certainly never thought I'd be attending a Sydney test match on my own because going to Old Trafford seemed adventurous enough at the time.
I got into cricket when I was about fourteen because there was nothing much to do during the summer holidays and I ended up watching a test match on the BBC and sort of worked out the rules as I went along. The problem was I never found anyone else who was interested in it because the game had a reputation as being something that old men enjoyed, and I suppose back then it was.
For a while I went to Old Trafford on my own, taking the train into Manchester Picadilly and changing to the rickety old Altrincham branch line, which was how you got there before they built the metrolink trams. When I was fifteen I went to three consecutive days of a West Indies test match, saved the money from my Saturday job for ages to pay for all the tickets and the train fares, though back then it only cost £3 to get in because I was under sixteen, which seems incredible now. I loved going to Old Trafford and eventually became a junior member and then a full member and always enjoyed the gentle nature of the game, the old men with transistor radios, the old lady in the front row who used to fall asleep in her pink raincoat and wake up if the crowd roared a six.
And then one day I heard a girl in my French class talking about watching the cricket and I turned around and said "God, you watch it as well?" and we both laughed because of course, watching cricket was deeply uncool. So for a while I had a soul mate and between us we managed to follow Lancashire up and down the country in her big sister's red mini as well as following England, especially in the ashes test matches.
Her parents had Sky TV, which wasn't very common in the 1980's, so we used to sit up all night following England's fortunes abroad and if they were playing the Aussies we'd pretend we were sitting on the hill at the SCG and sing along with all the songs we knew the words to. And she had that board game called "Test Match" where you rolled a little steel ball down a plastic chute for the bowler's arm and tried to get one of your plastic batsmen to hit it. We'd spend ages arguing over who was having Steve Waugh on their team and then her big sister would open the game as though she was commentating for the BBC in the style of Richie Benaud; Morning David, morning everyone, and welcome to this beautiful morning at the Sydney cricket ground. Always the Sydney cricket ground.
At sixteen, my cricketing friend left school and started working in a bank, which meant she suddenly had a bit of money, most of which she saved towards following the England cricket team on their foreign tours, along with her sister.
Her parents didn't charge her any rent and her grandad used to bung her regular wads of cash, so she was pretty well off. I was still at school of course, and after that I was at university and as I no longer lived at home I could barely afford to pay my rent, let alone go swanning off to Antigua or Sri Lanka. I was always glad on her behalf, you know, but I was equally envious of her foreign travel and felt distinctly left out of what had been our cricketing trio, especially when they really did go to Australia and really did get themselves a ticket to sit on the hill at the SCG, I mean, it wasn't even like I could go round to her parents house to watch it on Sky TV with her being away, and playing Test Match on your own at the dining room table just doesn't have the same allure.
So fast forward twenty years and here I am, walking along the road towards the SCG for the January test match and if you'd have told me I'd have been here I think I'd have jumped around the room in absolute joy back then because I don't think there was anything else I'd have wished for more than that.
These days I haven't the energy (or the suspension) to jump about, and you know what? You just can't get that enthusiasm back, just can't feel the same way about it, even though you can remember how you felt at the time and you can remember all the players and who batted at what number, these days those players are long retired and the ones doing battle on the pitch look too young to drive a car. I know, I know, I'm sounding very old, but today at the SCG I felt very old.
It all started at lunchtime because there was a bloke holding the microphone for channel 9 at the boundary rope and when he turned around I realised it was Mark Taylor. Mark Taylor used to open the batting for Australia back in the 1980's so he's one of those old heroes of mine and yes, I knew he'd long since retired and I knew he did the commentary on channel 9 because I've seen him, but seeing him today without the make-up he probably wears for the studio interviews made me realise exactly how old he'd become and I thought God, you know, another ten years and he'll be turning into Richie Benaud, who's always seemed sort of frail-looking, even when he was younger.
And then there was the etiquette, or lack of it, some of which might just be the way they do things here in Australia and some of which I'm convinced must be a general slip in standards over the years.
So for a start, the crowd here moves about during the overs, a strict no-no in Britain, where you don't get up from your seat or return to your seat while an over is being bowled. And yes, that means waiting at the top of the steps with your pint of beer while six balls go by but it's no hassle and it prevents you from disturbing other people while they're trying to watch the game.
Secondly, the Australian crowd are such terrible losers that they don't offer even a polite applause when the opposition scores a boundary. Just take a look at these photos of the Indian crowd celebrating the fall of a wicket and look at the faces of those Aussie children who've turned around in their seats to look at them, totally confused at the sight of people who are not dressed in green and gold having something to celebrate.
The Australians have a saying, second is the first loser, which kind of sums up how they feel about not winning, especially at sport. The policeman is one of six who were quickly drafted in to keep an eye on this small crowd of Indians, you know, in case they caused any trouble, though it was obvious it would have been the aussies in the neighbouring seats who'd have been the ones starting the trouble because they were just seething at their team's batting collapse.
But in the end it was the newspaper that did it. I was sitting in the Don Bradman stand, a place that cops all of the sun and hardly any of the shade after about one in the afternoon, so I eventuallly went off into the tunnel under the stand to get some shade and thought I'd buy a nice broadsheet to pass the time between overs (it being a bit of a lonely pursuit being on your own at the cricket).
Except no, I couldn't buy a newspaper because there wasn't even a shop. The only things I could buy were ice-cream, beer or gourmet hot dogs (though surely these words are mutually exclusive?). No shop, no newspapers, no golf umbrellas, no little old men with transistor radios, just lots of sweaty Australians pushing and shoving their way to the front of the beer queue and not bothering to apologise when they stand on your toes, and all of this without even waiting for the end of the over.
They say cricket had to modernise because it needed to attract a younger crowd, and I don't doubt it; I just wish the younger crowd knew how to behave. Sharing a test match with them today, I felt far more lonely than I ever did sitting with the oldies on the pavillion at Old Trafford, even the ones who were asleep.
The Hill
The Sydney new year's test match is another one of those annual sporting events the aussies go wild over and this year the visitors are India.
Not that I'm much of a follower of Indian cricket, but they're as passionate about their game as the Australians are, so I was looking forward to catching the test match before we go home.
The Sydney Cricket Ground is easily within walking distance of our flat, in fact the two ends of the wicket are referred to as the Paddington end and the Randwick end, so living in Randwick, it's incredible I haven't been here all year. The limiting factor has always been having nobody to care for Ella while we're at the game, our babysitters having never actually set eyes on her because she's always asleep by the time they arrive. I mean, you couldn't just leave her awake with someone she's never met.
And today was no different because Ella's nursery is closed for Christmas, a bit of a sticky situation when we're trying to pack up and sell our things, exactly the time we need daycare to be open, though it's not quite as bad a situation as when arrived without daycare last January. Anyway, as usual we're doing it all in shifts, which means today was my turn at the cricket and tomorrow it's Darren's turn.
The SCG is a great ground, though they got rid of the legendary hill years ago and replaced it with proper seating. The hill was notorious in the cricket world because the crowds that gathered on the grass were rowdy in the extreme, so the hill wasn't somewhere you'd consider standing if you had any sort of objection to the back of your legs being used as a toilet (yes, it was really that bad).
Anyway, things improved a bit when they scrapped the grass and put in the seats, though the atmosphere of the SCG matches was changed forever because, disorderly as they might have been, the crowd on the hill were genuinely funny, you know, having fun, the sort of thing that attracts the attention of law makers and law enforcers across Australia, all of whom seem intent on imposing rules exactly as they are written down, with absolutely no exceptions.
This year even the seating on the hill is closed because they're constructing a new multi-level stand right behind it. And this year they've had a record low number of arrests on the first day of the Sydney test match, which goes to show it's all about where the fans are sitting rather than what they're sitting on.
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
The Final Chapter
Do you know, there are people who've read every entry in this blog-a-thon thingy since last December, which is a scary thought because about 350 people have passed though and 85 of them come back on a regular basis. It's like you've been reading my diary you bloody snooping lot.
Anyway, I've been told it's a bit like reading a book, so about 85 of you have been reading the same book in real time over the last year, a bit like Richard and Judy's book club without all the swanky suede couches (or any of their money).
So given this statistic it's only fair that I mark the last chapter so you don't get a surprise when I sign off. And because it's not a book, you can't even sneak a look at the last page so you'll just have to keep reading.
So yeah, the blog's up this weekend. In fact, I think you'd say I'll be blogging off within the next few days. I'll miss writing but I certainly won't miss the poorly laptop, excrutiating download times or pain of sifting through images on the Nikon picture project software, which has been the thorn in my side all year - Gah!
Anyway, I've been told it's a bit like reading a book, so about 85 of you have been reading the same book in real time over the last year, a bit like Richard and Judy's book club without all the swanky suede couches (or any of their money).
So given this statistic it's only fair that I mark the last chapter so you don't get a surprise when I sign off. And because it's not a book, you can't even sneak a look at the last page so you'll just have to keep reading.
So yeah, the blog's up this weekend. In fact, I think you'd say I'll be blogging off within the next few days. I'll miss writing but I certainly won't miss the poorly laptop, excrutiating download times or pain of sifting through images on the Nikon picture project software, which has been the thorn in my side all year - Gah!
Happy New Year!
And then we were off. The last red ball disappeared just as Steve finished handing around the champagne and woo, ooh, ah, here we go!
On new years eve, it's all about Sydney. Happy New Year 2008, though I can't help having a sense that the year that's just passed really was the time of our lives.
Nightfall
For the next couple of hours we alternated between scoffing the lovely spread Scott and Steve had prepared and taking turns to sit on the balcony and soak in the atmosphere.
The party turned out to be a bit of a Warrington convention with Lorna and her parents (Lorna being ex-Westbrook and her parents being current Westbrook), her brother Dave and his wife Nicola, who, it turned out, went to the same high school as we did, though both now live in New Zealand.
The theme for the evening was "The Time of Our Lives", hence the egg-timer on the side of the bridge, which dropped a red ball every five minutes and turned over 180 degrees at the end of each hour, adding to the enormous sense of anticipation.
And the harbour was full of boats with illuminations, a bit like the trams that run along the seafront in Blackpool but then again, no, nothing like that at all. Some of them were displaying significant years, like 1788 and 1901, and some other years we hadn't the foggiest about.
Trial Run
They do a trial run on the fireworks at 9pm, not from the bridge but from the ground around it and from barges out on the water. I think it's for the kids who might not be able to stay up until midnight but Ella hated the loud banging and began to cry.
A swift cuddle sorted her out and pretty soon afterwards she was asleep.
Welcome to the World
And then the phone rang and for a moment my heart stopped. Was it going to be Chopperdoc HQ sending Darren to East Timor, and if it was, how was he going to explain he'd come out to the party without his passport?
But no, it was his mum. A baby boy for Liam and Vicky, born just an hour beforehand, as yet un-named but a healthy 7lb 7oz and with the dubious honour of having new years eve for a birthday.
"Ella, you've got a cousin!" we shouted. "And wasn't even your Aunty Amy!"
Ella's first cousin, our first nephew. Welcome to the world.
Still Waiting
More shots around the harbour before sunset.
(1) Revellers at Luna Park
(2) A barge sails under the bridge
(3) Flags flying high. The one at the front is the flag of NSW
Waiting
Monday 31st December 2007
We spent the morning at Shark Beach on the harbour today. Shark beach is usually a great swimming spot with it's clear and calm waters but today the swells were so huge you could have surfed the waves, which is really unusual. We were on the beach by 10am, neither of us feeling particularly energetic, just concious that time's running out.
In the afternoon we drove across the harbour to MacMahon's Point, which is where Steve and Scott have their rooms with a view; the only view you need for new years eve (if only the tower block to their right didn't obscure the view of the south pylon....). Driving into the area at 4pm we were greeted with traffic cordons and police and big flashing signs, all the way down to the waterfront. There wasn't a hope in hell of parking the car so we had to park a good walk away and trek over to their flat with our stuff instead; always a challenge when you combine a heavy toddler with a series of steep hills, but worth every bit of effort it took to get there (and back).
As promised, the police had closed the road they live on and a huge steel fence had been erected for the occasion, two security guards checking we were residents before allowing us to pass through, which of course we weren't, but I think they assumed we must be given the number of bags we were lugging. And then the strata company had hired more security guards for the front gate (strata refers to the management company who maintain apartment buildings in Sydney; you pay them a fee, they forget to change the lightbulbs in the hallway. That sort of thing). To say the neighbourhood was on lockdown is an understatement.
Anyway, we passed all the security tests, including having our names on the list and henceforth spent a lovely early evening watching the preparations going on around the harbour, including the crowds in the botanical gardens with their picnics (tickets only; picnics provided) and the crowds lining circular quay and those on their boats moored up beside the bridge.
And it wasn't just the fireworks we were waiting for; Darren's brother was about to become a father and we were waiting for news from Birmingham too.
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