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 ..

The green eyed monster v The thin blue line

When I tell you what I do you'll probably think it's a bit odd. Masochistic even. But I reckon you might do it too. In fact, I think we all do it. Not necessarily about the same thing. But I'm sure that we all do 'it' about 'something'.

Before I tell you what I do, I have to preface it by saying that I love running. Love it. This year I'm running 5 marathons - I just did Canberra. One down, four to go. I can't wait. It's a bit silly really.

So, without further ado, here's what I do ... 

If I'm driving along, or sitting in a cafe, or standing chatting to someone, and I see someone running along the street, or along the beachfront, I get all jealous. I get running envy. I want to be doing the running instead of whoever it is that I'm seeing doing it. I wish I was running with them ... or preferably in front of them!

I suffer from the green-eyed running monster.

The odd thing is that I feel the same even if I've only just been for a run myself. Even if I've just been for my long run on a Sunday morning. Later in the day I might be sitting in a coffee shop minding my own business and a runner will potter by ... and my own personal green-eyed monster will appear. I find myself wishing I was running instead of just sitting there enjoying my coffee.  

If you think this is a bit of an odd state of affairs it might be because you don't like running. That's cool. But if you surf or ski or snowboard or read, cook or take photos, or whatever your 'thing' is, and you spot someone else doing your 'thing' when you're not, I bet you get those little pangs of envy too. (It's good envy, by the way. It's not like coveting your next door neighbour's car - or wife - or anything. It's not real jealousy).

It's just the green-eyed monster giving you a gentle nudge.

Where it all began ...

I started running a fair few years ago now. Not seriously. 

I only started running seriously after the 'Blue Line Marathon'. It wasn't really called the 'Blue Line Marathon', but everyone knows it as that. The Blue Line Marathon was the Sydney marathon that was held to test the 2000 Olympic Marathon course. It started in North Sydney and it ended on the running track, across the actual finishing line, inside Sydney Olympic Stadium. (This was back in the days when 'it' was still called the Sydney Olympic Stadium. It's called ANZ Stadium now. Finishing a Marathon in ANZ Stadium doesn't sound half as romantic). It was called the blue line marathon because it famously followed a blue line on the road all the way. That thin blue line is still on Sydney's roads even today.

I ran the Blue Line Marathon ... and I finished.

But before we get all self-congratulatory and start reaching for bottles of expensive French bubbly, let me divulge two pieces of very critical information -

1. I didn't train for the Blue Line Marathon

2. I went out the night before the Blue Line Marathon

3. All night

I know that I said that there were two pieces of critical information, and I realise that I actually gave you three. I guessed that Critical Piece of Information No.2 was useless without you knowing Critical Piece of Information No.3.

I got in just after 4am. The marathon started at 6am sharp. Whoops!

I won't talk you through the race itself. I've spent almost every minute of every day since 2000 trying to forget every metre of that run.

I will say only this; as I approached Sydney Olympic Stadium I was so relieved ... that I began to cry.
They were actual, proper tears.

I wobbled into the tunnel that led through to the running track in the stadium and I stopped to stretch my legs. I couldn't actually feel my legs. I knew they were there cos I could see them through my tears. Whilst I was leaning against the wall of the tunnel - crying - and stretching two limbs that I could no longer feel, I could hear the crowd in the stadium cheering as people crossed the finish line. I had friends waiting for me in the stadium. It was my turn. My one moment of running glory had arrived. My one lap of real honour was just ahead of me. It was right there. In the Olympic Stadium. Just through the tunnel. I had 400meters left to run. 

I let go of the wall. And attempted to run.

No. Nope. Nothing. Nada. My legs - the ones I could see but couldn't feel - flatly refused to do what they were designed to do; move. They refused point blank. Refused. They were done for the day. I had run 41.795km of the required marathon distance of 42.195km. I had 400m to go, and my legs simply said, 'No. Enough is enough'. I was finished. Literally.

& then something truly remarkable happened ... a lady came jogging up to me. 

Right here, right now, I'll be brutally honest. She was a large lady. Very large. And she was decked out in the very latest lycra running gear with pink trim and bright white runners. The running gear looked like it had been bought just for the Blue Line Marathon. It certainly didn't look like it had been used much before the Blue Line Marathon. She hadn't trained. But then she probably hadn't been out til 4am that morning either. She stopped next to me in the tunnel, put her arm around my shoulders and said, 'C'mon, 400 meters to go. That's all. You can do it, mate'.

And then she let go of me.

She had to let go of me. She had no choice. 

She had a double-stroller to push. With two kids sitting in it. Two! Twins, by the looks of it. Aged about 2. She'd pushed them 41.795km. The three of them had just 400m to go.

And then she - they - were off into the Olympic Stadium. Pushing her double pram. She wasn't really running. It was more of a walk / run / shuffle type of thing. Whatever it was, it was a good deal more than I was doing. I wasn't running anywhere, I was just standing in the tunnel crying and pulling at my lifeless legs.

That was it. It was the very first time that my green-eyed monster appeared. All I wanted to do was run. And finish. Run Tipler run. It was pre-Picky. I was still a Tipler back then. Run Tipler, you muppet.

So I did.

Well, hang on. Not really. It felt like that's what I did, but reports from friends who witnessed those final 400-meters said that I wasn't really running. It was a mixture of running and hobbling. I was robbling. But I did finish my first ever marathon. In exactly 5 hours. And just behind the large lady with the double pram and the twins. I had tried to catch her up the back straight and then again down the final straight. I wanted to say thanks. But more than that I wanted to beat her. Them. My green eyed monster was out.

But I didn't. I couldn't. She was 'walk / run /shuffling' and every first time marathon runner needs to be aware of this simple marathon running fact; walk / run / shuffling' is always a whole heap faster than 'robbling'.

Pip pip

Today's post is dedicated to Hayley (running The Gold Coast Marathon on June 30th. Her first) and all other 42.2km first-timers. Hat's off to ya. Enjoy every single step along your real, or imagined, thin blue line.