Tao tour Australia 2007

3rd April 2007 - The Travelling Tao Part 4 - Sydney I

Thailand gallery - Australian gallery - part 6.part 5.part 4.part 3.part 2.part 1

Sydney has always maintained the position as being our favourite city, though on this trip both Tash and I have noticed some changes, not for the best I have to say;
It is now seems much more like London, less laid back and more bustley and certainly shows signs of being much more aggressive.
The transport system is horrendous, for both cars and buses - I am not even going to go there!
All the good shops are gone (I have been asked to add that one, if it is not the fish shop at Norwest I am not really interested)

As Sydney is our second home, the normal rules also do not apply, there was to be no luxury limo from the hotel, no seamless interrogated transport network transfer to our destination or easy connecting flight check in. We do however have the ever reliable Ken.

Standing as we were on the middle traffic island outside the arrivals terminal, Tash and I reflected that no matter what you achieve in your life, it means nothing outside of family, this is no bad thing, as I support Ken in his opinion that $10 is a lot to pay for the privilege of simply driving past the terminal in the hope that your passengers are standing in the right place. We had completed this manoeuvre before and so were ready, standing in the Disabled bay, as it turned out, but as the rest of the parking spaces were for buses, and the sailing principle of "might has right" works for cars too, we thought it best.

The drive back across the city was an appalling two hour crawl, narrated in its entirety with a continuous diatribe from Ken about the state of the road and transport system "and then they go and put in this bloody bus lane, I mean it beggers belief, they put on about two buses an hour and us poor pricks have to sweat it out in this traffic", to use an exclusive quote. This isn't just my father in law moaning, the Australian need to complain out loud is an institutional right, several radio stations and many of the most watched TV programs are based on this, .....and they call us "whinging poms"!

As we got closer to home, the "Ponderosa" (that is my name by the way, Ken isn't into Cowboy, in any sense of the term) , Ken turned his attentions away from the new two lane Bus corridor that has been, frankly, carved out of the road and housing landscape, to discuss the improvements made to the local shopping centre, the afore mentioned Norwest , the centre of my holiday universe "and they have a fresh fish counter. It's amazing how they get such a range of fish in every day". "perhaps" I suggested "they come up from town on the bus".

We were only at home in Sydney for 10 days, so there was a great need to find a way of seeing as many people as possible, together. In recent years I have become much more involved, in how Tash organises her time here; I have no need to see her hassled or stressed and when dealing with such a large group of friends and relatives this was the result, not your fault, I would like to point out, just the way it is. Ken and I had previously floated the idea of a single event, a Barbecue (of course, where are we!), as a way of spending time and seeing everyone. Previously we have had this sort of thing at the "Ponderosa", but man, there is too much effort involved in that, so down the park we went.

These aren't difficult pictures to pick out on the gallery, I caught most people unawares and with the exception of Dave, Christine's husband, not actually eating (sorry D.), It doesn't look it but that day was exceptionally humid, I sweat like a Eskimo in a hot-pot most days, so am used to this sort of thing, however no one really felt like doing anything other than sitting down.

Ken was as ever, the host with the most, providing all the cooking and drinks service that any party might require, there is of course no man that can cook cabonosi quite like Kenny (not that I eat it, favouring a "no land animals rule" but he makes it look so professional - so if you are having a barbecue and need a raconteur/cabonosi chef in the Sydney greater metropolitan area, I can recommend no better). Cinnamon turned up eventually after driving past us three times, yes she has the bright auburn hair and the name does fit, just in time, as it turned out to also see Peter and Mari again. Peter used to work with us, when Tash and I first started going out, so he has an important place in our relationship, not least because he is always able to real off an inordinate amount of names of people who we have either long since forgotten or never even knew in the first place and their current place of work and life style. These guys have been back in country for 4 years and it was particularly nice to see the three kids (who ran amok beautifully), now they are growing up.

The rest of the week was spent as you would have imagined, doing some visiting. One of these, and I mention it because there are pictures, was to Kelby's Cafe in Marrickville, this is run by Caleb, the husband of Belinda and now the father of Olive, another excellent breakfast. For those of you observant enough, there is a picture in the gallery of Caleb behind the shop counter with a blackboard announcing Olive's delivery behind him, most customers understood, though he reported a few did ask for a serving of the child.

Tash and I had set aside Tuesday night, the 6th of March as an adopted wedding anniversary, the real date is the 20th, but we would be in transit between Thailand and London, so picked a day when we could return to the Aria restaurant, the venue of our wedding reception for a romantic meal.

However things were not to be that easy...........

It was our intention to get into central Sydney by midday, by mid morning we were up and about and watching Marg' (nee Margaret, another fiendish Australian name shortening, designed to catch the unprepared foreign traveller out), Tash's aunt whip through a dusty old box of family photographs like the whirlwind that she is. Ken really didn't seem himself, imagine a mildly grumpy old Rhino circling in his pen and you'll get the picture, he admitted to feelings of light headiness and related uncomfortableness in his chest, nothing serious, don't worry, he confided and made an appointment with his doctor as we left.

We enjoyed a pleasant afternoon in the city centre and a long overdue return to the spot in the botanical gardens where we were married (see banner above). The late afternoon euphoria was somewhat punctured by a call from Marg informing us that Ken had been to the doctor, who run an ECG readout on him, but had then rung back several hours later to order Ken immediately to the Emergency department of the hospital. We witnessed the immediacy of his departure the next morning, the house had taken on a very Mary Celeste feel about it, potatoes for dinner now water lodged still on the hob, a glass of wine ready to be drunk on the counter. Ken had been deemed as being an immediate risk and was whisked up to the ICU ward. Marg told Tash, rather hopefully, not to worry and enjoy our night, he was not in major trouble, but they were concerned and would be keeping him in over night.

Tao question: So what would you do then?

Option A: Cancel the evening and rush back across town to the hospital.

Option B: Carry on with the evening.

Living with cancer for seven years has developed our ability to make difficult descions; I may have commented before that I often use the analogy of an Olympic runner compared to a weekend jogger, both run, but only one of them has the experience and training necessary to be able to run successfully in any environment. In any normal life you would only have to deal with a "worst case" scenario once or twice a decade, we do it every 3 months. Tash and I sat down in the hotel room and talked about it, if Ken got worse, we would be told, therefore as this evening was singularly important in our trip, we decided to carry on. We are never truly away from our life in London.

There was no phone call and the evening passed as pleasantly as we could have wanted and without Ken's predicament making itself too heavily felt.

We checked in with the big man himself the next morning, Marg' was due drop some stuff off to him before lunch so we had time to go and have breakfast at a lovely spot by the sea.

I will try to set the scene for you, Bronte is Bondi's smaller sibling, but a whole lot better for it. I always remember it like the beach used in the final scene in the film "Point Break"; big tree lined with white sand. The reality is nowhere near, but as my fantasy "Point Break" source was supposed to be Bells beach in Victoria, I have been there too and can attest that it also bears no resemblance to it's filmic doppleganger either, all, in a zen like way, is now equal. Bronte in the real, is a slim triangle of sand with some trees surrounded by a lot of flats and houses, there is a main road that meanders though all this, that had, from memory, some excellent cafe's.

Bondi and it's surrounding area is the home of my most favourite breakfast foods.

We parked up and walked down to the row of cafes. Being a hot morning, the place to sit was on the outside tables and after picking one cafe over another (odd choice as they all serve the similar food) we sat down at the end of tree tables and contemplated admiring the beautiful view ...... of a black landcruser that had been so thoughtfully parked in front of us. To be fair there were cars all the way along, but we just had the biggest. Peering over the bonnet of this continent crossing behemoth I commented that the sea looked nice today.

This was not the only thing that would make our romantic early morning breakfast anything but. The two ladies on the table immediately next to us were involved in some heavy power bitching "I mean you should just speak to Susan because I just don't want Robert ringing me up when he wants this project complete" - this was all delivered in the self absorbed high pitched shout that we have both noticed seems to be the norm now in Sydney. To be frank I suspected that this important project was more likely to be an art gallery rehang, rather than anything really useful like the specifics of engineering another harbour tunnel, but as the more annoying of the two ordered her food by simply holding the menu up to the waitress, with her finger under each required item, lest she waste ample breath addressing this serving wench, we decided that this idiot should be left alone.

...and then the couple with the baby turned up and took the last table, furthest away from us. I quickly deduced, or hoped, dependant on your point of view over this, that her husband / boy friend / life partner / soul mate / astral cohort (the list could well go on) was deaf. She looked to be this regions version of a Notting Hill "Yummy Mummy"; no floral skirts and BoHo chic here, only toned hard triathlon muscles rippling from her vest and lycra pant combo, I think that all that surf swimming had resulted in a rock pool forming in her ears because man was this woman loud. So loud that we could clearly hear her conversation over the other two pseudo-corporate lunatics, each of them competing for the higher octaves and grasping for yet more audible trophies of self importance. I looked at Tash and asked (in my low throaty growl, just to be different) if this whole affair was nothing like the experience we came here for, she agreed and we moved off the front line to an all together quieter spot inside.

It was the waitresses first day, we left her a large tip and I wished her all the luck in the world as we walked out of earshot before exploding into a roar of relived laughter. Cinnamon later confirmed, she is fairly local to the area, that there is a lot of people like this there now, ma. That is a worry.

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