Sydney Miscellany

The last few days have begged the question: what is there for an invalid to do in winter in Sydney? The answer seems to be: get better quick, because Jonny certainly won’t be slowing down his walking pace for you. As a result, I’ve battled through calf twinges and knee tautness, thigh stiffness and ankle aches and I can now, just about, stay within two streets of him.

Fortunately at the weekend H was with us too as we strode through Sydney’s streets. She’s got shorter legs, so she’s at about my pace. We had a few good chats this way, and it was nice to catch up, although not, of course, with Jonny.

My “walko” has been discarded for about five days now. Although it’s good to be getting better so rapidly, there is a downside: I’ll now have to do a very pronounced limp if I expect anyone to give up their seat for me on a bus or train. Fortunately, there has always been just about enough room for me to sit down so far, but the public transport of Sydney is full of hidden dangers for a recovering knee ligament reconstructionist such as myself. A couple of days ago, a very large teenage boy almost fell on top of my knee as it was protruding into the aisle of the bus when the driver came to a completely unnecessarily jerky stop. Actually, that’s something I’ve noticed about drivers of buses the world over: they have no sensitivity in their feet at all, because they certainly can’t judge the pressure required to brake gently. They must numb them in ice before they start their shift or something. There must be a universal job description which says: “Whenever braking or accelerating, you must be able to make passengers feel as if they are lottery balls in Lancelot” and “After picking passengers up, always drive off aggressively before any passenger has had the chance to hold onto a rail, let alone sit down.”

Having said that, if I was a bus driver, I’d probably be so bored that I’d want to see how many passengers I could make fall over in a day. Ten points for a recovering knee ligament reconstructionist etc. While I’m on the subject, every day on my way to work I walk past security guards with machine guns (don’t ask) whose job it is to stand there for 12 hours a day with their finger on the trigger. I don’t know how they can resist not occasionally spraying the street with a few bullets, or taking a pop-shot at a car tyre, or even aiming the odd volley at someone’s leg or something. I was the same with computer games, unable to resist shooting people who are on my side, unable to resist turning my goalkeeper around and scoring stupid own goals, unable to resist running myself out, unable to resist getting onto the green in two only to putt with a one wood, unable to resist causing thirty-bike pile-ups. That’s why I don’t play them anymore. At least I didn’t, until I got here and Jonny and I started our Pro-Evo competition. It’s 27 games t0 25 to me at the moment. Very tense.

I’m not capturing my experiences of Sydney particularly well today, am I…?

The weekend was very relaxing. We had a walk round Manly’s shops on Saturday and I bought myself some cold-weather clothes which I probably won’t use again until I return to England in 2008, but boy, am I using them now. I was shown some Sydney pubs. These are great, because they’re proper pubs rather than the wine bars that proliferate Singapore, and you can’t beat a proper pub. You even have to queue at the bar for a drink here rather than have some waiter come round to your table. Quality. We went to Darling Harbour and watched the sunset which was very pleasant. It’s a beautiful area of the city – bright lights and water: a great combination.



I’ve also had my first look at the world famous Bondi Beach, which is actually rather small. It’s in a corking setting, but I prefer Manly where H and J are living because it has a longer, equally beautiful, but quieter beach with beach volleyball courts.

Judge for yourself. Here's Bondi:



And here's Manly:



Mind you, anyone who actually goes onto the beach, or worse still gets into the sea, in this weather is a loony. Isn’t that right, Jonny.

In this photo of me at Bondi you can see that the anticipation of going to my first Aussie Rules Football game is getting the better of me and I’m already doing the referee’s signal that a goal has been scored. Yes, I did feel stupid doing it and no, I don’t know why I did it. I’m already thinking about getting a Sydney Swans team shirt. Aussie Rules shirts, as you may already know, are vests. I’ll be the height of fashion back in Bristol in August.



Sadly, because I did the referee’s pose once, I’m now required to do it in every photo. Jonny won't take no for an answer. It's as if I'd tear some essential fabric in the universe if I stopped doing it now. Over on his blog, you can see that, amongst other places, I’ve been captured on the train doing it and in King’s Cross where we had a meal in another proper pub last night. King’s Cross is, I suppose, what you might call a seedier area of town, and it attracts a lot of backpackers and heroin addicts. I liked it – it was lively, full of neon and the women standing outside the shops seemed extremely hospitable.

Before we went to King’s Cross, we went to the Orbit Bar, which is 47 storeys up in the centre of Sydney. The bar revolves (according to Statto Jonny, one revolution takes an hour and a quarter) and has magnificent views. Night had fallen, so the photos I took of the city were, in fact, photos of blurred lights. Despite the fact that I knew once I’d taken the first shot that any subsequent photos would be more of the same, I carried on taking pics until my batteries ran out. Fortunately, Jonny’s hadn’t, so he was able to take a shot of me doing the referee’s signal for a goal.

Anyway, that’s more than enough for now. Next time I might try to write something a bit more descriptive of Sydney. Every time I think about it now, though, all I can think of describing is the perpetual cold.