Part 4. Change. The hardest blog post I've ever written.

Deciding to be together forever was the easy part.

Deciding to change my life was the hard part.

At its heart this is a blog about change. I've delayed posting it for a fair few days now. Change is hard. Very hard. It's even harder when you've done it and then you decide to think about it and write about it. Writing about stuff is supposed to be cathartic. It's not really. It's just hard.

So, this might just be the hardest blog 'thingy' I've ever written. Some of the people 'involved' will read it. O well. What can ya do? It's all water under the bridge now. It seems like only yesterday, but really it was years ago. We are where we are. We're all mates again. Kind of. Facebook mates at least. Most of us are anyway. We weren't for a while. But there was no other way. That's change for ya. When you decide to do 'it', you may as well do 'it' properly.

I left Istanbul & I left Picky. But we both knew. We both knew that we were going to be together. But it was crystal clear to both of us that it was going to be a long hard slog. Picky was at Uni just outside Munich and I was in Sydney. She had a four-year sentence at Uni. I would just have to wait. For four years. We were on a path. We were in one of those dreaded 'long-distance relationship' thingies.

For four years.

At first I carried on like nothing had changed. But the reality was that everything had changed. Most of all,  I'd changed. In Istanbul. I really had. When I got back to Sydney I didn't want to go out and party anymore. I was in a great group of friends. Great. Awesome. All of them. & single. I stuck with it for a fair old while. Going out. Doing 'single' stuff. Partying. But my heart wasn't really in it. My heart was a few kilometres outside Munich. In Passau. With Picky.

Picky.

She flew to Sydney every vacation. Every single one. For three and a bit years. She managed to cut her degree short by cramming in extra subjects. How she did it I honestly don't know. At the end of every term she hopped on a plane and flew Down Under. Her mates at Uni were awesome. They were true friends. They supported her through the pain, through the loneliness, through everything. They read this blog too. We love them and we're totally indebted to them. They know who they are.

Back in Sydney things were tough. I was doing stuff I didn't want to do. I blame no-one. Except myself, of course. When you're doing stuff you don't want to do you really have to sit down in the cold light of day and take full responsibility for your actions. I did. And I decided to stop. That meant changing my life. So I did.

Deciding to change really is easy. Actually changing is a wee bit harder. I went cold turkey. I gave up everything. My friends. Going out. Going to the gym. Smoking. All the other stuff. It was the hardest, loneliest, most difficult time of my life. It felt like I was all at sea. Like I was flopping around on the ocean miles from land. I almost drowned a few times. At those times I was saved by Emma, Gen, Caro, Gina, Nigel, Helen, Dale and Tony - and of course by Picky. We were thousands of miles apart, but really we were together.

I was also saved by running. I often think about why I love to run so much and I know the answer; when things were really dark ... I ran. I would wake up really early and just go out for a run. Or I'd run in the evenings because there was nothing else to do and it helped me to get to sleep. It became a bit of an addiction. Or an escape. It wasn't a bad one mind you. If you start running to keep loneliness at bay and you've got 4 years to kill, you end up feeling (and looking) quite good thank you very much!

Here's a tip; if you want to lose weight, fall in love with someone who's a million miles away from you for 4 years. Admittedly, it's a bit extreme, but you'll get results. Guaranteed. It certainly beats the Atkins Diet hands down.

& then one morning I woke up even earlier than usual, gave myself a shake, got dressed, made myself a coffee, grabbed my car keys and drove to the airport. It was D-day. Picky was arriving from Germany. And this time she wasn't leaving. This time she was coming to Sydney for good. She'd finished Uni and four days later she was on a flight. Home. Her home. It was 20th April 2008.

She walked through the automatic doors into the Arrivals area of the International Airport. I was standing right there. When we saw each other we both just smiled. We both knew. We knew we'd done it. We'd met on a beach on Koh Samui on 4th February 2004. We'd been together for just a year and then apart for more than 3 years. And now? Well, we both knew that 'now' was the just the beginning ...

Pip pip

Part 3. The greatest game of football ever played anywhere in the world. Ever

I watched it with Simon. 

He cooked up a belting breakfast for both legs. He had to. It was on at 4.30am. We sat on his sofa with a full English and watched the semi-final. Liverpool v Chelsea. It was the one with the ghost goal. It wasn't of course. It was a million miles over the line. He was a Chelsea supporter. He was gutted. I wasn’t. I was over the bloody moon. As soon as the final whistle went I just knew I had to go. To Istanbul. To see the final. Liverpool v AC Milan. I just knew.

When you live in Sydney and you decide that you’ve simply got to go to Istanbul to watch the Champions League Final in less than a month you’d better get your skates on. I needed a ticket. I needed flights. I needed Picky to fly from Germany to Istanbul to meet me.

Look, I’ll be totally honest with you. I sorted the ticket and the flights first. Sorry. It was football. It was Liverpool. It was the 2nd love of my life. After Picky. We’ll get to her later.

I scoured the inter-web. The cheapest ticket I could find was $6000. For one! I was desperate. Totally desperate. But I wasn't THAT desperate. I very nearly did. But I didn’t. $6000? Nah! 

& then 'a mate of a mate of a mate' said that he had a mate who had a ticket going spare. I called him. In Perth. He had a Liverpool accent. He also had a ticket. And a job in a goldmine about 700 kilometers south of Perth. They wouldn’t give him the time off. He only wanted $1000 for his ticket. Only $1000. It's funny how your sense of perspective and value changes when you've come close to paying $6000. $1000? I was that desperate. I bought it right there and then. 

The flights were a different story. Getting to Istanbul from Sydney was going to take me 42 hours. Each way. I would have to go via Perth. And Bahrain. 42 hours there. 42 hours back. And a $1000 ticket. To see a football match? Madness!

Not really.

To see Picky.

I hadn’t seen her since she’d turned to look at me as she disappeared through immigration on January 10th. It was May. 5 months. I was still bereft. Devastated. Heineken still didn't taste the same.

Istanbul changed everything.

Istanbul changed my life. It changed football. It changed the world. It really did. The whole bloomin' world changed in one magnificent, unforgettable night. 

I met Picky at Istanbul airport. As I was walking into the airport the Liverpool team were walking through the airport. They walked right past me. I screamed at them. I told them to win the Champions League. Please. Steven Gerrard looked right at me. He heard me. I know he did. He knew how much the ticket had cost, how long the journey had taken and why I was really in Istanbul.

& then I spotted Picky. She'd just got off the plane from Berlin. Liverpool could wait - they were only the 2nd love of my life.

The only place in the whole of Istanbul that had a spare room was the Hotel Splendid. It wasn't in Istanbul. It was on the tiny Island of Buyukada, one of the Princes Islands in the Sea of Marmara. We were an hour by ferry to Istanbul. It was miles from land. Miles from anywhere. It was perfect. Isolated. Romantic. Quirky. Different.


It pretty much summed up everything about our relationship!

On the day of the game we hit Istanbul early. It was packed with Liverpool supporters. Packed. We mingled, sang and drank. One of the blokes we were hanging-out with bolted off to get his chest hair waxed in the shape of 'LFC' (Liverpool Football Club). In Turkey they wax your fluff manually - with a rolled ball of hot wax. He came back a different man.

The Greatest Game of Football EVER. EVER.

At half time Liverpool were 3 - 0 down. The game was over. Finished. Gone. Dead. 

I was sitting directly over the half-way line. six rows from the pitch. The bloke in the gold mines a million miles south of Perth had come up trumps. He’d sold me the best ticket in the stadium. I could see everything. I could see AC Milan score 3 of the best goals I’d ever seen. Not one. Not two. Three. The game was over and done with by half time. 

I was in tears. I was sitting in my $1000 seat, crying. I should have stayed at the Hotel Splendid with Picky. Two blokes behind me had had enough. They left in total disgust. More fool them.

The 2nd half began. Liverpool looked different. Something felt different. Something. I don’t know what. Just something. & then Liverpool scored. Hope. The atmosphere in the stadium changed. Liverpool scored again. At that very moment I knew. I really did. I knew that Liverpool would win the Champions League. And I knew that I would marry Picky. I don't believe in omens and I don't believe in superstition of any kind. Period. But sitting there in the Ataturk Stadium it was AC Milan 3 Liverpool 2, I was sitting in my perfect seat with a Heineken in my hand. It tasted perfect. PERFECT. Like it had tasted in that little transvestite bar on Koh Samui.

Liverpool scored again. 3 - 3. 

Extra time. Penalties.

Liverpool won. Of course they did.

It was the greatest game of football every played anywhere in the world. Ever.

& I knew right there and then that I would marry the love of my life.

I missed the last ferry back to Buyukada. 'Course I did! Liverpool had just won the European Champions League. After being 3 - 0 down at half time. Against AC Milan. My future wife could wait. For now there was some serious celebrating to be done. 

I found the Liverpool supporter's party. It was hard to miss it. I stayed all night and most of the morning.

When I arrived back to our secluded little island I saw Picky. She asked me who’d won. She'd fallen asleep in the hotel room during the game. I told her that we were going to be together forever. She nodded. 

She knew. 


She didn't know that Liverpool had won the greatest game of football ever played. But she knew.

... More to follow

Pip pip

Part 2. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

11 minutes. 

660 seconds. 

Well actually, it was 11 minutes and 21 seconds. So technically it was 681 seconds.

That’s how long it took me to drive from McMahons Point to Centennial Park. From my place to the place where Picky was living & working as a nanny during her gap year in Sydney.

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. I’d met the most beautiful girl in the world and when she told me she was from Germany my heart sank. & then she said that she was living in Sydney for a year. My heart did an underwater u-turn and shot back up to the surface. I asked her where she was living. (Geographically speaking Sydney is a very big place). She said Centennial Park. My heart did summersaults. 

Course it did. I lived in McMahons Point. Centennial Park was only 11 minutes away. Well, 11minutes and 21 seconds.

We were a full 681 seconds apart. And we had a year.

A full year. That’s what we had. One full year. 365 days. It wasn’t a leap year. Pity. That would have given us an extra day.

But still, we had a whole year.

Picky had only just arrived in Sydney. The family she was nannying for had given her time off to pop to Thailand with a couple of nanny-friends she’d already met. Lucky me. Lucky us.

We stayed together on Koh Samui for the rest of the holiday. We spent most of our time sitting at the bar in a transvestite joint at the end of the Chaweng party strip. Drinking Heineken. I have no idea why. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I suppose that's love for you. It makes you do funny things. Like sit in bars drinking Heineken surrounded by women with hairy arms and huge Adam’s Apples. We loved it.

I left Koh Samui. Picky left two days later. I picked her up from Sydney Airport. We went straight to breakfast at Bondi Beach. And that was it. After breakfast we were inseparable. For 365 days. Totally inseparable. We did everything together. We had to. We knew that we only had a year. If we went out for dinner every single night, that was only 365 dinners. If we went to the Gold Coast every weekend, that was only 52 visits to the Gold Coast. The clock was ticking. We were in a race against time. There was fun to be had and we only had a year to have it. 

Over the course of that year we gave Sydney - and Australia - a right good nudge. A good, solid kicking. Together. The two of us. Partners in crime. Partners in time. Limited time.

The unfortunate thing about time is that it passes. And when you’re giving a place a right good nudge it has a nasty habit of passing more quickly than you’d really like it to. 


Bloody time. I hate it. It drags when you don’t want it to and it whizzes by when you wish you could put the brakes on it a bit. 

Tick tock, tick tock. 


Like I say, I hate time.


It passed.

I dropped Picky at the airport on January 10th 2005. It was the worst day of my life. I had a fistful of photos and a head full of memories.

And that was all. I didn’t have Picky. 

She had a place at University in Passau, close to Munich. We didn’t have each other. 

She walked through immigration. I told her not to look back. She looked back. I walked back to my car. It was the longest walk of my life. I’ve never felt so empty. So sad. So lonely. I was miserable. Bereft.

When you’re bereft because you’ve just lost the love of your life there’s only one place in Sydney for you.

The Oaks in Neutral Bay. I went straight there and ordered a Heineken. 

It didn’t taste the same. 

Standing at the bar in The Oaks, in that one single moment, I learnt two very simple lessons about life; first, Heineken tastes better when you’re drinking it with the girl you love and second, you don’t truly know what you’ve got til it’s gone.

I learnt both of those things then , and - as I write this blog with a Heneiken in my hand and with Picky feeding Pearl opposite me - I still believe both of them now.

More to follow ...

Pip pip 

Full Moon (or, how I met my missus) part 1.

OK, so picture this, you’re holding your beautiful bouncing baby girl and a 15-year old lad pushes past, all rowdy, spotty and loud (like all 15yr old lads tend to be), & that lad turns out to be the future husband of your beautiful bouncing baby girl. 

Or maybe this ... 

Your 19 year old daughter finishes school and whizzes over to Sydney on her gap year before starting Uni in Germany a year later. She’s all excited cos she’s managed to score a job as a nanny for a lovely family in Centennial Park. & then one day she calls you to say she’s met an Aussie bloke. Oh & by the way he’s 34.

& then in a heartbeat she’s married him, moved to Sydney and had a baby. And by the way, she’s your only daughter (only child even!) and you live in Germany and don’t speak any English.

That's me and Picky. This is our story. It’s true. Every last word of it.

For Pearl. How I met your mama.

I met Picky on the beach outside Ark Bar in Chaweng, the main tourist strip on Koh Samui off the coast of Thailand. 

Actually, I met her in the sea. She was floating on a lilo, so was I. We kinda bumped into each other. Lilo to lilo. We got chatting. I told her that I was a scuba-diving instructor from Sydney who was studying to be a psychologist. She was well impressed. She told me that she was a 19-year old German student who was working as a nanny in Sydney on her gap year after school. I was well impressed. 

Mainly I was well impressed that a 19-year old nanny on her gap year was bothering to talk to a 34 year old scuba-diving instructor who was studying to be a psychologist.   

That evening me and Picky had a Heineken or two in a bar. 

& then I lost her. 

I blame the full moon. 

Well, to be perfectly honest (just between you, me and the entire inter-web) I blame the Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan. 

I was in Thailand with a bunch of mates for the world famous (infamous?) Full Moon Party. I wasn’t there to meet my future wife. I was there to party. Hard. It was February 2004. The Full Moon Party was on 6th February. It was massive. There were probably 20,000 people there. We all went over on the ferry from Koh Samui. Me and my mates. And Picky. I lost Picky somewhere on the beach before the party even got going. I eventually got back to my hotel room on Koh Samui a million days later. 

I didn't know where Picky was staying and I didn't see her on the beach. I'd lost her under the full moon. Just like that.

And then, a few days later, by pure chance, I spotted Picky again in a bar with her friends. She told me she was leaving with her mates. She was going off to see the elephants in the north of Thailand. She was beautiful. Stunning. More beautiful than I remembered. Before the Full Moon Party I was only focused on the Full Moon Party. I cursed my luck. I’d met the most stunning girl I’d ever met in my life, had a quick drink with her, lost her at a Full Moon Party ... and now she was buggering off with her friends. 

I asked her not to go. I asked her to stay with me on Koh Samui. She told me that she didn’t know me from a bar of soap. And she reminded me that I’d lost her at a Full Moon Party. I kicked myself (again).

She left the bar. She had to pack. There was an elephant somewhere in the north of Thailand with her name on it.

The next night I was propping up the bar in a place called Mint with a Heineken in my hand. I was miserable as sin. I was so miserable that my mates had given up on me. They were across the road in the Kangaroo Bar, going nuts to Men at Work's 'Down Under'. Eileen was probably already on an ephalump somewhere in the north of Thailand. 

My mate Az came into Mint. He was a solid fella, Az. He walked towards me at the bar. I thought he was going to tell me to cheer up and drag me off to Kangaroo Bar to listen to another rendition of Down Under. He took a step to his left. 

Picky was behind him. 

She’d skipped the trip up north. She told me that she wasn’t much into ephalumps.

I ordered her a Heineken. 

& I swore right there and then that I wouldn't lose her again. 

I didn't. 

... more to follow in part 2.

Pip pip


A very special shout out to Roland Slee for his awesome shot of the full moon. The other snap is Ark Bar. The exact place that I met Pearl's mama

Man v Horse

You can con a woman but you can’t con a horse. 

That’s a fact, and it's indisputable

Horses are clever, wily things. Of course, women are too. By and large the vast majority of women I’ve ever met are right up there on the clever and wily scale. But the thing about women is that - when it comes to men - they tend to give us the benefit of the doubt. They give us a bit of time. & then ... bang! They work us out. Just like that. They see right through us. It takes women a while but they always suss us out in the end.

Horses are a different kettle of fish entirely. 

They don’t give an inch. They take no prisoners. They sum you up in a shot. And they work you out. & then they chew you up in their long horsey mouths, and spit you out. 

I’m no expert in horses ... or women. My lack of expertise in the latter has been illustrated many times over the years. 


But, when it comes to horses, my lack of expertise has been highlighted on just one, single, solitary occasion. 

Once - just once - I took on a horse, and I lost. Comprehensively. Like I say, horses are clever, wily things.

Man 0 Horse 1

Before my one and only defeat at the hooves of a horse, my only interaction with our four-legged friends had been watching them whizz around Randwick Racecourse at the Spring Carnival. I don't mind a flutter at the races. I’ve lost my cash on every occasion, mind you. Except one. Once - and only once - I actually won. And not just won. I won big. $600! 

It was pure luck. I picked the winning horse because the jockey was wearing a very fetching outfit with red and white spots.  That was good enough for me. And my $20. The little fella with the red and white spots (and his horse) came up trumps, and when they did I pretended like I was the lord of the manor; like I knew everything about horses and horse-racing.

'Course I did. I'd just pocketed a cool $600. Six crisp, green ones. Woo-hoo! I was over the moon. I popped my winnings in the pocket of my pants. I also took off my tie and popped that in my pocket next to my winnings. 


When you’ve just won $600 and proved to the world that you’re an expert in 'all things horse-racing' you don’t have to wear a tie. 


Actually you do. 


I was in the Members’ Area at Randwick Racecourse. Ties are compulsory in the Members Area at Randwick races. A big burly chap with tattoos told me to put my tie back on ... Immediately. I pulled my tie out of my pocket. My $600 came with it. I didn’t notice. The six crisp, green ones were gone. Lost. Just like that. 


I noticed at the bar when I went to buy a drink. Despair.


I was officially a $600 winner at the races for less than 20-minutes. 

Like I say, I’m no expert in horses. 

Man 0 Horse 2

When you’re a self-confessed 'non-expert' in horses the very last thing you should do if you’re trying to impress a lady is suggest that the two of you go horse-riding for the day. 

I don’t even know why I did it. She mentioned that she loved horse-riding and I thought, “horse-riding? How hard can that be? It’s only a horse.” So I called a fancy riding place and booked us in for 4 hours of riding through the Blue Mountains. Unsupervised. I was offered a supervised trek. But I declined. I also mentioned that we - WE! - were experts.

Horse-riding experts. 

The last time I had ridden a horse - or at least a horse-like creature - was on the beach at Blackpool. It was a donkey. I was 8.  

As we rocked up at the Mittagong Advanced Riding School for our date (for my date with destiny) I was as nervous as a kitten. It wasn't the date itself. It was the use of the word Advanced in the name of the riding school. 


I strolled into the reception area with all the confidence of an expert in 'everything horse'. I could sense that my date was impressed. Intimidated even. Our horses were ready and waiting in the yard at the back. The lady in charge told me that she’d chosen us a couple of real crackers. Us both being ‘experts’ and all. My date was ecstatic. I just stood silently, staring at my horse. Working it out. Summing it up. Desperately wondering how the hell I was going to get up onto ‘it’ without giving away the fact that I had no idea how to get up onto ‘it’. Or down off ‘it’. 

I told myself that once I was up onto ‘it’ everything would be fine and dandy. 

It wasn’t.

That’s the thing about horses; they know. They don’t just know. They know everything. I reckon it’s that big horse-shaped head. It holds a big horse-shaped brain. The bigger the brain, the more stuff the animal knows. That's a rule with all living things.

As soon as I was up onto the horse it knew. It bloody well knew. It knew that I knew nothing. It knew that I was clueless. It probably knew that I’d only ever been on a donkey on Blackpool Beach. It probably knew the damn donkey. By name. I suspect it also knew that I’d once won - and then lost - $600 at the races. That’s how smart horses are. That's how smart my horse was.

The four of us trotted out along a path that took us up above the Mittagong Advanced Riding School.  We’d been gone ten minutes - less than ten minutes - when my horse suddenly decided that she'd had just about enough of the joker on her back. My horse decided that it was time to expose the joker for what he was; a joker. My horse decided to turn around ... and head home. My horse did just that. 


Right there, right in the middle of the path, she turned right around and walked right back towards the Mittagong Advanced Riding School.

My date asked me where I was going. I told her that ‘I’ was going nowhere. The horse was in charge. She told me to pull on the leather thing in my hand that was attached to the horse's mouth (I forget its name ... not being an expert in horses and all). It didn’t help. The horse simply ignored my pulling and trotted on home. It knew the way. Horses know everything. 

I did everything to try to make my horse stop walking home. I said 'Woah'. I said 'C'mon boy'. I said all the other things that the smart-arsed kid in Champion the Wonder Horse used to say. My horse totally ignored me. It was going home. And I was going with it. I had to. I had no idea how to get off.

As I disappeared around the corner on the way back down to the riding school I heard my date say something about me saying that I was an experienced rider. 

We all arrived back at the riding school. We’d all been gone for a grand total of 15 minutes. I’d paid for 4-hours. The owner was puzzled. My date was more puzzled. I was exposed. The horse was non-plussed. She wanted a carrot. The owner wanted an explanation. So did my date.

I said that my riding skills were a tad rusty. 

The horse looked at me down its long horsey nose. It knew. 

So did the owner. 

So did my date.

All three of them had worked me out.

It had taken two of them a tad longer than it had taken the horse.

Like I say, horses are clever, wily things.

Hope you had a great weekend.

Pip pip

Thanks to Julie for the super snaps of her two horses; Fred & Lula. Having two horses makes you an expert in horses.

Life's better in boardshorts

What’s so good about Australia? 

I freely admit that I’ve never actually been asked that question. So, that being the case, I suppose it’s a bit of a waste of time - and a waste of a blog post - to answer it. It’s the blog equivalent of talking to myself. I’m blogging to myself! I’m answering a question that I’ve never been asked. I'm blogging about a hypothetical.

I suspect that the question isn’t asked because the answer is just assumed. Australia. It's where the sun shines all the time ... and there’s a beach around every corner. Plus, the Aussies are soooo laid back.

The truth is that when you move lock, stock and barrel to another country there’s very little point comparing where you are to where you’ve come from. 'Country comparing' is a slippery slope to unhappiness. If you start to compare things as soon as your arrive in a place you're quite naturally comparing the familiar with the unfamiliar. 

And the familiar will usually win hands down. 

You really have to give a new place time for the comparisons to be valid. If you start comparing straight away it’s always only going to end in tears. That’s because you only tend to remember the good things about the place you’ve come from, and you tend to compare these to the bad things about the place you’ve arrived in. 

In a new place the bad bits tend to stand out like a sore thumb. You can find yourself reminiscing and wandering down memory lane. Unfortunately Memory Lane can be a rather unreliable place.

I've been in Sydney for 15 years. My 15th year anniversary was on May 2nd 2012 to be exact. 15 years! I reckon that's probably enough time for me to offer a humble opinion on what's so great about the place. 


It’s also enough time for me to really understand what I miss (and don’t miss) about England.

Before I do anything, I need to say one thing - I’m definitely not an armchair critic. I’m not just 'chipping in' from the sidelines of Sydney. When it comes to Australia, I’m fully in. And I have been since Day 1. Since May 2nd 1997. When I moved Down Under I really did move. I sold up in England. I closed all my bank accounts. I didn’t rent a storage unit. I flogged the lot or shipped it over and I moved. Lock stock and barrel. There was no going back. (Well, there was really. I could easily have just hopped on a plane and whizzed ‘home’ in a heartbeat - a 23-hour heartbeat). 

What I mean is that when I emigrated I fully intended to give Sydney 'a real good go'. And I have. I’m a fully-fledged Aussie now. I became a citizen as soon as I was legally entitled to, bought a place and I’ve voted in every single State and Federal election since. Mind you, voting is compulsory down here and there’s a fine of about $50 if you don’t vote, so on occasion - due to the lack of candidates with the requisite number of brain cells - I have voted reluctantly just to avoid the fine. Voting-wise my heart hasn’t always been in it. But Australia-wise, my heart has always been fully-in. 

So, back to the today's conundrum; what’s so good about Australia?

I reckon it’s this. 

Life is better in boardshorts. 

I saw this in a surf shop window. It was the tagline for an ad for, well, boardshorts. The boardshorts being spruiked were a little too garish for me - too much flouro orange and green. They weren’t my style. I like my ‘boardies’ plain. I don’t need people staring in the direction of my legs. I’ve got some of those funny veins that you get when you’re getting-on a bit. I didn’t like the shorts. But I did like the tagline. 

Life is better in boardshorts. 

I think it’s spot on. It sums Australia up for me. Australia doesn’t take itself too seriously. Of course, stuff is just as serious Down Under. There’s crime and war (Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest) and inflation and traffic jams and road rage and all that stuff. 

But there’s also the beach. 

And the beach is one of life's real ‘equalisers’. 

When people are at the beach, doing whatever they like to do on a beach, you have no idea who they are, what they are or what they do. They are stripped naked - sometimes a bit too naked, depending on the beach (email me and I’ll tell you where to go!). There’s very little ability to show off your wealth or status or seniority on the beach. A beach towel is a beach towel is a beach towel - and these days even the ones that say Versace were probably bought in Bali or Thailand for a couple of dollars. The beach is different from the City. 

I lived In London for a while and in The City there was a competitiveness that spilled into anything and everything. It was inescapable and all-pervasive. You could see it in what people wore, what stuff they carried with them, where they drank, ate, where they lived and how they spoke.  It was all-encompassing. You got sucked into it and it was difficult to escape. To be honest, the last time I went back to London all people seemed to talk about was money. And houses. And how much money houses were worth. It might have been the people I was with. But it was an obsession.

There’s a bit of this in Australia. Not much. But it’s there. The difference Down Under is that you can actually escape it. You can go to the beach. It’s nowhere to be seen at the beach. It can’t be. Everyone’s in boardshorts. In Sydney, when the sun comes out most people head to the beach to surf, sit, sip coffee or mooch around. Of they chuck a ‘sickie’ - called ‘mental health days’ down here - and skip work altogether. No-one did that in London when I was there. No-one. Ever. It was all money, money money in London. No-one had time to spend it mind you. They were all too busy earning it. 


I reckon that if someone built a huge man-made beach someone in Central London the whole place would chill-out in a heartbeat.

Billy Bragg - that quintessential of all English 'folk poets' - wrote a song a while back called The Beach is Free. You either love Billy Bragg or else you think he's a tuneless, Communist-flag-waving muppet. But I reckon he hit the nail on the head. There aren’t too many places left in the world that are totally free and open to everyone regardless of anything and everything. I think that 'the freedom of the beach' is one of the last real levellers left in life.

You shouldn’t compare countries or cities. It really is a road to nowhere. Most places have at least something going for them. Well, there's Bracknell in England. That didn't have much going for it when I lived nearby. But, apart from Bracknell, most places have something to make you think 'Yeah, I could live here'. But I reckon that when that 'something' is the beach, it makes a world of difference. 

That's just my view. And of course I love the beach so I suppose in many ways I'm a wee bit biased. You might feel the same way about the countryside, or the snow, or wherever. But I bet there's something about somewhere that makes you think, 'that's where I truly feel most at home'. 

And we all know one thing for sure; there's no place like that one place where you really feel at home!


Hope you have a great week.

Pip pip

Ps ... that's the end of my little look at Sydney. For now at least. I might return, blogwise, in the not too distant future!

A little slice of Sydney ...



Picky made this cute little video for her mum's birthday a while back. To be honest she's rather good at that type of stuff. I've no idea about it, being a bit of a techno-dinosaur and all. 


It's kinda cool and it shows a few of the things I've blogged about previously ... pearl, picky, coffee @ barefoot cafe, Manly Beach & waffles with warm chocolate sauce.


It's a perfect little snapshot of life in Sydney.


Of course, it doesn't show the traffic (terrible), the rain (and boy can it rain here!), the price of fruit (utterly ridiculous), the quality of fruit (even more ridiculous than the price), the lack of public transport (dire) and a whole heap of other stuff that can be really annoying here. 


Like I said here Sydney ain't perfect. 


But when you're sitting with the two girls you love, a coffee from Barefoot and a waffle with warm chocolate sauce it's not too shabby at all.


Have a super weekend !!


pip pip 





Bye bye blighty, bye bye Blair. Hello Sydney.

I left England on May 1st 1997.

The vast majority of people in England were completely non-plussed that I was exiting Ol' Blighty and heading Down Under.  On Thursday 1st May 1997 they had far bigger fish to fry.

They were busy voting for Tony Blair.

He'd woo-ed a sizeable chunk of the natives with his 'New Labour' malarky and people were heading off to the voting booths in droves to pop a cross next to 'Labour'. Poor old John Major didn't stand a chance. To be fair, he'd made a bit of hash of things. Most of his Government had been having affairs with all and sundry, the poor old English pound had been withdrawn from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday (1992) and people were pretty much sick of the Conservatives. They'd been in power for 18years by then. They were out of ideas. When politicians are in power and are out of ideas, they tend to do stuff like have affairs with all and sundry.

Labour could have fielded a monkey and it would've beaten John Major.

They chose to field Tony Blair. Popular opinion would say that a monkey would have been far better than Blair in his latter years.

On May 1st 1997 Labour won with a landslide. Landslide doesn't really do it justice. In was more of a trouncing. They swept up 418 seats out of 650. The Conservatives didn't win a single seat in Wales or Scotland. They got just under 10 million votes. Labour got more than 13 million votes.

There were 13,518,167 Labour voters glued to the TV, watching, hoping, for a Blair win. Well, that's not strictly true. Really there were 13,518,166 people-who'd-voted-Labour metaphorically pacing the floors as the results came in. One was in the air somewhere over Russia.

Me.

I'd hopped in a taxi, taken a detour via a polling booth, voted Labour and headed to Heathrow airport to jump on a flight to Sydney. I didn't live a single minute in England under Tony Blair. Not one.

I'd also never been to Sydney. Or to Australia. Or even to the Southern Hemisphere for that matter. The closest I'd come was during the interview for my job in Sydney. The bloke asking the questions turned the web-cam around and showed me ... a field outside the office window. It looked nice. To be totally honest it looked just like any field in the Northern Hemisphere. I didn't say that of course. I really wanted the job. I made out it was the best field I'd ever seen. (I didn't mention that I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't teeming with kangaroos. Being an Australian field and all).

When I landed in Sydney I took a taxi from the airport to Coogee. Coogee is a beach suburb just south of Bondi. It's famous for two things - The Coogee Bay Hotel and the beachside walk that connects Coogee with Bondi. If you're in Sydney there's a few things you have to do and one of them is the beachside walk from Coogee to Bondi. It's right up there as far as beachside walks are concerned.

I walked it on May 2nd 1997 and whilst I was doing it I made a huge decision. I decided I was never going back to England. I was jetlagged. Obviously. I'd just arrived. My head was all over the place. I was walking one of the most beautiful walks I'd ever walked. The sun was shining. The sea was blue and Tony Blair had been elected. I was on Cloud 9.

I was also in the most beautiful place I'd ever been to my life. Honestly, it was stunning. It was Sydney.

Look, over the years - as I've become a proper Aussie - there's things that really piss me off about Sydney and about Australia. That's natural. But one thing has never changed;

Sydney is the most beautiful city I've ever been to.

I'd like to say it's 'the most beautiful city on earth'. But that's a wee bit arrogant. I've never been to Rio de Janeiro or Cape Town or Mumbai or Beijing or Moscow. But I've read about them, or I've met people from those places, and they typically say that Sydney wins hands down.

Sydney.

For me it's three things; light, space and boardshorts. Yeah, I know, boardshorts?! I'll get to those later in the week.

Today it's light and space.

The light in Sydney is special. It's hard to describe 'light' on a blog. In 10 years you'll be able to take a bit of the 'light' in Sydney and teleport it onto a blog, but for now I'll say this; on a typical day in Sydney, if I leave home without my sunglasses and get half-way to work, I'll turn round, drive home and get the buggers. The worst thing that can happen is that I get caught short without my sunnies. And that's in the winter. In the summer, on a bright sunny day, I wear them indoors. It's that bright. There's something about the sun in Sydney. It's blinding. And it means that even on a cloudy the day the light is special. Very special. Sydney is never grey. Even when the sky is grey, Sydney isn't grey. I think you know what I mean. I've never known 'light' like the light in Sydney.

& then there's space.

Australia is the pure definition of space. There's heaps of the stuff. Twenty-odd million people live in a place the size of Western Europe. It's ridiculous. Here's a fact or two; there are 60million kangaroos in Australia. And between 5 and 10 million wild camels. And 200million wild rabbits. I could go on. But I won't. It gets boring, and mind-blowing. But I'll leave you with this; the largest farm in Australia is Anna Creek Station. It's 6-million acres or 24,000sq metres. One farm. The whole of Wales is only 21,000sq metres.

Even in Sydney there's heaps of space. Everyone moans about how there's no room in Sydney. It's rubbish. There's heaps of room. There's National Parks all over the place. Even close to the city centre. It's truly incredible. Sydney is the only city I know where, when you arrive by plane and peek out of the window, the most prominent colour you see is ... green.

And that brings me to this.

Sydney.

It's a special place. I know it. Picky knows it (& she's German), most Sydneysiders know it. And how do we know it? Well, almost everyone I know who lives here, says that when they've been away - on holiday, for work, or for longer periods - they feel something very special and very unique when they come home. Just as the plane comes in to land something happens. It's something quite unique to Sydney. It never happened when I lived in England. You get this funny feeling. It's an 'Ah, I'm home' feeling.

It's a sense of pride. Of comfort. Of happiness. It's impossible to describe.

I'm even thinking now that I haven't done it very well here. But it's all I've got! Hopefully it helps to explain why Sydney became my home.

And why I never fancied moving back to England. Even when Tony Blair was the big boss!

pip pip

Ps ... There's a blog first from me coming your way on Friday. A video! Hell's bells ..