harry and penelope’s house

As always, the intention to do lots of cultural things has not really worked out. Booked tickets for Expanded Architecture (installation/architecture/dance) but then didn’t make it. Have still not got to Anne Ferran’s photographs at the Australian Centre for Photography, or the contemporary Chinese work at White Rabbit Gallery, or the dream home/small home exhibition –already finished! – at the Museum of Sydney. But K and I did (through luck rather than planning) get to visit inside the iconic Harry and Penelope Seidler House, a tour led by Penelope herself, as part of the current Seidler exhibition. Well-weathered piece of concrete modernism, with prime examples of furniture from the 1970s. And bumped into somebody I have not seen for many, many years, also visiting, which was nice.

city bingo 2: humorous signage

Humorous names for shops, products and businesses abound here; and not based on subtlety either*. The photo shows one of my favourite examples - although the fresh fish fillet brand called 'the one that got away' also appeals. A new local fish and chip shop (chipper) is about to open in Coogee and has a facebook competition for its naming. So looking forward to that.

And whilst I am at it, this seems a good moment to mention the drop bear. Not only for the creature itself but also its fine entry on Uncyclopedia ('the content-free encyclopedia') under the heading "this article may be Overtly Australian. Pommies may not understand funny stuff, only humour. Cannucks and Yanks may not understand anything at all. Don't change a thing and she'll be right, mate!"


* I am not alone in noting the application of Australian humour to signs - as always buzzfeed has got there first with a list and photos.

weather update

I made an aside in a previous post about the climate here not being benign. Obvious to locals, but I guess that before coming here a few years back (and finding my umbrella immediately blown inside out in a raging thunderstorm) my only model for hotter weather was the Mediterranean. A little cold in the winter, but generally balmy, warm and comfortable.

Sydney is, of course, often all of those things. But it also has monsoon-standard rains, chilling winds from the south east, very hot desert winds from the northwest (off the outback), blistering sun, glaring blue skies. It has extremes - and often contradictory extremes. As they put it on wikipedia:

The El Niño Southern Oscillation plays an important role in determining Sydney's weather patterns: drought and bushfire on the one hand, and storms and flooding on the other, associated with the opposite phases of the oscillation.

Exactly.  

barbie boats

The opportunity to have a communal barbie out-of-doors is everywhere to be found in and around Sydney: publically equipped with all the basic cooking kit, built-in tables and chairs and also toilets. Both generously provided and very well-used.

On the Hawkesbury you can even rent a barbie boat. (I should note that the one here is stuck on a sandbank, and will be unable to leave- according to our captain - for at least 6 hours). 

weekend away

Just come back from a fabulous few days away - just one hours drive north from Sydney - staying with K in a rental cottage at Dangar Island on the Hawkesbury river. Have had a bit of a thing about the Hawkesbury ever since I read Kate Grenville's Secret River which explores what happened when white settlers colonised land already inhabited by Aboriginal people (actually along the Wisemans Ferry stretch rather than where we were). 

Weather mainly wet and windy, which give us an excuse just to slob about, and then I took a boat trip.   We explored both the coastal side (the sea entrance into Broken Bay, so named by James Cook when he turned up here in 1770, although there is some disagreement about that) and then further up one of the river tributaries. Mostly scrub covered sandstone rising up directly from the water, with a few tiny strips of beach and some wafer thin settlements clinging to the edge, accessible only by water. Strange to think about the people who live here permanently (in among the tourists and weekenders) with no road, power, sewerage, phone connection or fresh water. So close to the city, but living a life still somewhat connected to those early settlers. 

We, of course, had all mod cons (although no cars on the island; transport of goods via buggy and wheelbarrows.)

all about envelopes

And whilst we are talking stationery: maybe these dis/ordinary moments are not just geographical discrepancies but also to do with the speed of historical change ( as I get older I definitely feel all sorts of slippages with both contemporary space and time.) 

A much younger colleague, A, admitted to his confusion about the office needing a whole cupboard for envelopes. A shelf maybe he thought, but not a floor-to-ceiling cupboard. Envelopes for him in all their myriad variations - sizes, colours, windowed and windowless, containing internal/external intentions - were just a distant memory ( if he had ever used them at all). N, L and I all tried to explain what the differences were, as we had used each type for its required responsibilities at some stage in the past. But A's eyes just glazed over. You could see he didn't really believe us.   

stationery

And then, of course, I find myself in exactly one of those weirdly-wonderful ordinary situations. In a stationers in Newtown. Where paper is piled so high, and in such a disorganized way, yellowing and dusty, that it is almost impossible to enter the shop and even harder to find a person of whom to make enquiries. The shop actually contains two men, one tall, gaunt and grumpy who sits at the till, but does not know the price of anything, and doesn't really want to serve you. And then from the back, a very elderly and rather short and plump gentleman, who started to serve me ( plastic sleeves for photographs to sell - a whole other story) but then gets distracted for a considerable amount of time with ordering ever more paper and supplies over the phone.

It took him at least 10 minutes to find the items I was after, involving a lot of shifting of mainly derelict pieces of machinery at the back of the store, and much tottering under heavy boxes. And then, of course, the sleeves were incredibly cheap and in the meantime we had a very long, interesting conversation about printing inks.

more on edgy

I have thinking a bit more about what I mean by edgy and wonderings about whether Sydney has an edge. I don't intend to suggest a desire for the dangerous or chaotic or exotic. But I am greedy for the unexpected - preferably both surreal and humorous - in everyday experiences, for moments and situations that spark an attentiveness to dis/ ordinary details, a sharpening of focus on the immediate.

What does this imply? Searching out Sydney's equivalent of America s white trash or English chavs - or more poignantly situated, the realities of life for many aboriginal people in the city? Or looking for alternative engagements with, and readings of, the city by artists, performers or eccentrics? Or something else? There are other kinds of extremes here - a climate that is not actually benign, vegetation that must be hacked back and many unnerving creatures that definitely have an edge. Should I be looking more to nature and less at urbanity?

And maybe I need to think about just why I love the dis/ordinary. One of the reasons for coming to Sydney was recovery and regrouping, after being caught for too long in a really appalling work situation. So it is about re-learning to relax but also refocusing. Sorry, Sydney - a lot to ask.



Meanwhile, for a reminder of what is just fab about Sydney, see 59 Reasons Living in Sydney Ruins You for Life

falling in love

I think I have fallen in love with Newtown. This might be just a brief infatuation, but very happy to be strolling idly down scrappy looking streets offering second-hand and vintage clothes, weird designer outfits, plus miscellaneous other paraphernalia (and of course with loads of places to eat). Just a sucker for hipsterville.

not the Melbourne Cup (3)

And then the aftermath. That evening Coogee Beach was packed with people dressed up to the full, and mainly very very drunk.

not the Melbourne Cup (2)

When I say the Melbourne Cup is a pretty big thing here, I mean that lots of people get the afternoon off work or - like us - take time off to watch the action. Ours was quite impromptu - spare bottles of fizz and snacks from some previous event, a spur-of-the-moment sweepstake. I got the favourite - a japanese horse called Admire Rakti..... which ended up last, and then died immediately after the race.

... and there was a prize for whoever got the last horse. So I got 2 bucks back, which was actually not that nice. 

not the Melbourne Cup (1)

The Melbourne Cup is a pretty big thing here (its a horse race, not a yachting competition as A thought or some kind of Australia-rules football, which is what I imagined). My workplace is right next to the Royal Randwick course which runs a race day at the same time - supported by a giant screen so race-goers can also watch the Big One from Melbourne.

So I spent quite a lot of time trying - and failing - to get a photo of a race here (although the smell of horses from the stables is over-powering, a smell I luckily like).

sculpture trail

Sydney's annual Sculpture by the Sea event hit the eastern suburbs over the past few weeks - meaning that the coast path is heaving with people, all having a very good time. The pieces aren't really curated (either to their specific sites or to each other) but the sheer number and variety are a pleasure to see. 

city bingo 1: ineffectual mail receptacles

City bingo was invented some years ago ( we used to play it in Moscow). The idea is to find things that absolutely define a particular place. Not so obvious that you find this thing on every street corner, but not so obscure that you cannot really argue the case for it's specific 'cityness'.

So here is my first proposal - the utterly undersized and unfit for purpose Sydney letter box. These, even most new ones, are incredibly tiny so that even standard letters often stick out or fall out (this in a place with torrential downpours).  It is not merely circulars and free newspapers that end up lying about in the street, but bills and bank statements. The nice thing is that everyone seems pretty relaxed about this, which can make me feel like an over-anxious security freak.

gardening (2)

And then I discovered the native plant nursery run by my local council....

gardening (1)

A bit over-excited. Have been given the garden to look after, so immediately went out and bought lots of vegetable plants and seeds. No idea how to deal with this climate or the mainly larger, brighter and more threatening insects and other wildlife (London squirrels eating my strawberries are now replaced by possums eating the mulberries). And if things grow here, they seem to grow like crazy; S has planted some asparagus, and it went from just appearing out of the ground to 4 foot tall and gone to seed in about two days. Day of the triffids.  

So here is a photo of my very first planting, to do a 'before' and 'after'. 

that gym thing

Have never really been a gym person. Severely put off by those serried ranks of peculiar machines; and the whole artificiality of running on the spot and using headphones to block out what little external stimuli there is in a gym - when there is whole wide world to enjoy outside, full of the unexpected incidents you get in the company of real people going about their everyday lives.

In Sydney this seems pushed to an extreme; exercise is nothing if you don't work yourself to the absolute limit. There were a couple on the beach yesterday dragging huge weights on ropes strapped to their chests backwards and forwards across the sand, like some kind of ancient Roman prisoners-of-war, whilst their personal trainer idly texted his friends on his phone. And when I attempted a gym class two weeks ago, billing itself as a pilates-yoga-taichi mix, we plummeted nonstop from one heavyweight move to another - "going all the way" - in time to very loud disco music ( tai chi - disco, who would have thought it?)

But have finally stumbled on the perfect class. It is twice a week for old codgers - the over 50s. We do serious interval training, but combined with idle chat and a lot of laughing; a recognition of both the absurdity and necessity of getting fit as your body begins to get grumpy and uncooperative.



I have just remembered. I also used to hate 'quiet and slow' activities. I thought yoga and tai chi were for wimps, and threw myself around the squash court instead.