Hmmm...

This morning when Gregory got up before the alarm, the sky was glowing orange.  "Must be a bushfire", he said.  But it was a duststorm.  When he went down into the batcave (basement) to the car, it was covered in dust.  He says when he put on the windscreen wipers to clean the windscreen, mud came out. 

When I left the house, the sky was a glowing dirty white, like an old oyster shell.  I walked to work in dusty wind, peering up buildings dissappearing into a chalky haze, and my eyes were full of grit all day.  I could smell soil on my skin.  Mid afternoon the sky cleared. 

Michael's michael posted this on facebook.  I love it.

Godzilla in sydney duststorm

On our walk tonight, a cool wind blew.  Whe we walked up Mary street, the wind blew hard, but dissappeared when we turned up Foveaux.  The little men were out on Fouveaux, digging up the road with diamond tipped drills and making a terrible noise.  "I'd hate to be living here with this going on!" shouted Gregory.  We walked up Fouveaux discussing how to sail against the wind by tacking and using the power of triangles.

Outside the youth shelter was parked an old stationwagon with an aboriginal dot painting on the side.  We looked at it and remembered the chalk drawing that is usually somewhere on the ground outside the youth shelter.  Sometimes it is really big, in different colours, with many decorations.  Other times it is smaller.  All this time I thought it was a turtle, with a sort of long neck.  But the version on the car made it clear:  Its a goanna.  We discussed our love of goannas and lizards.  Around the corner outside the youth shelter, the chalk drawing was closer to the driveway, and scuffed by shoes.  Its neck seemed to have many rings around it, like an african lady.  But it wasn't very easy to see tonight.  Maybe goanna had been blown away by the wind. 

Most of the dust was gone.  Except in corners and cracks and grooves.  The streets and surfaces had been blown clean.  In front of the Citigate Sebel I found some golden dust in a crack and showed Gregory.  Not that we needed that to see dust.  Our balcony is covered in it.  Including the load of clean knickers I hung out late last night.
 

They were coming next to last, but they have wond the last 9 out of 10 games or something.  Tonights win puts them one game away from the final.  So Gregory is mad with pride, and the streets outside are full of mad happy parramatians waving fan-hands and leaning on the horn.  Foveaux is the last stage of the walk from the SCG down to Central Station and there were 30,000 fans at the game.  

(subtitle:  Posted for Ben)

Many laps have passed underfoot since we saw Uncle Kev, and I haven't reported any of them.  Mainly because some stinker slipped into the flat and nicked my laptop and purse while we were asleep.  Took a month to replace the laptop, a month long fight with Dell the details of which I would rather forget than recount here.  And then I got moving on writing for the old PhD.  You get writ out.

But I am back, because I must mention Daniel Johns.

First things first.  We took Dad on our four laps, when he visited for my birthday in June.  We showed him the pubs, the buddhist temple, the huge oversized whisk in the kitchen supplies shop, the oversized jar of nuttella in the fruit and deli on the corner.  We told him about the poo which was on the pavement one night:  intact on the first lap, an end flattened when we came past on the second lap, a smear by our third passing, detectable by smell and stain.  We showed him where the boy had threatened to jump off the youth shelter roof onto passing traffic (but didn't).  We showed him the brothels, and the converted church, and the youth shelter, and the alcoholics shelter, and the salvation army, and the taxi refueling station. 

In early July I went for tea with Ben, and was amazed and delighted with his wonderfull short hair.  Ben from Barjarg.  Electric soundscapes Ben.  Has short hair.  If I have any readers other than Ben, they will probably know Ben, and perhaps this will be the first and last peice of juicy gossip to appear on this blog.  I was delighted because I recently cut my own hair off (I got a hairdresser to do it really) and am so happy with the results that I advocate short hair for all men, women and children.

I took Ben for four laps, because he was so keen to see the sites I have described.  I showed him the pubs, the buddhist temple, the huge oversized whisk in the kitchen supplies shop, the oversized jar of nuttella in the fruit and deli on the corner.  I told him about the poo which was on the pavement one night:  intact on the first lap, an end flattened when we came past on the second lap, a smear by our third passing, detectable by smell and stain.  I showed him where the boy had threatened to jump off the youth shelter roof onto passing traffic (but didn't).  I showed him the brothels, and the converted church, and the youth shelter, and the alcoholics shelter, and the salvation army, and the taxi refueling station.

He showed me that the hairdressing salon we pass four times a night is the place he got his amazing haircut.  And he can walk fast.  There was no tiring Ben, not even on the steepest slopes going up Foveaux.

The night before last, Gregory and I were walking past the Excelsior as he told me about the things said at work that day.  There is always a crowd smoking on the pavement outside the Excelsior, they are usually cool and young, or dangerous and grunge and older, but always very credible.  They often have obvious talent.  Sometimes they are watching bands whose names I am starting to recognise by the posters outside.  One band which is easily remembered are called The Beards.  Another name which I remember from grungy days in Brisvegas many years ago is the Six Foot Hicks.  Anyway we pushed through the cool smokers (horrid young people!) and crossed the side street, passing more figures sitting on the wall.  I looked at them as we past.  "She said to me..." Gregory was saying.  I said to him, "Was that Daniel Johns back there sitting on the wall?".  He didn't know.  We'd passed already.  We walked on.  "Anyway, so I said to her,... "  said Gregory.

On the next lap, we pushed past the smokers, and although there were fewer people on the wall, there he was, the shining boy himself.  I looked at him, but I was on the street side.  Gregory was on the wall side, and Daniel looked back at Gregory with that shy observant look he has.  We walked on.  "Yes."  said Gregory.  "That was Daniel Johns".  We walked on, discussing how one might go out as Daniel Johns, and the mechanics of being recognised on  streets.  And of course what we could have said:  thanks for this song and that.

The whole affair is tinged with a little sadness for me at present.  "They" have put our rent up, again, starting November.  We can't really afford it no more.  We could, I guess, but we know we would be being gouged.  Do we move into the suburbs?  Do we find a place where the dining table can come into the living room off the balcony, so that we can use it in winter and we dont have to eat tea on the couch using plastic stools as tables, spilling things everywhere and swearing at each other about the size of this stinking shoebox?  We could move into a place with a spare bedroom!  Where will we walk at night then?  Dulwich Hill, walking up and down Old Canterbury Road at night?  It might have some kind of vibe, some sort of action to look at.  But will we see Daniel Johns sitting on a wall in the dark? 

I doubt it.

On four laps last night, a cool night, we turned Crown street and felt the first warm breeze of Spring.  In the pub with no name, happy drunken heterosexual males bawled along with Queen.  You get a glimpse of tv screens as you pass.    In a boxing ring type venue, surrounded by a darkness of screaming fans was Freddy Mercury, gleaming white, shirtleess, wet chested, white faced and fabulous.  "God knows..." sang Freddy and the drunken freckly red heads at the bar.  "God knows I want to break free!"   

On Saturday Gregory and I decided to go into town for a look around.  After coffee.  We have our weekend morning coffees in the coffeeshop downstairs.  To be accurate, I have coffee, Gregory has a strawberry milkshake.  The coffeeshop worked out that Gregory was the man who chose the coffeeshop, and they perform miracles with his milkshakes.  They wheel out a towering mound of icy milky goodness, the straw sticking out of a berry snowslope, with real berries shredded through it.  It appears that the baristas have to receive special training to make Gregory's milkshake, and when it is presented to him there is often a moment where they step back and look at it with quiet pride.  He wont go anywhere else now.  Its all out of control.  Luckily they also make good coffee.

So after coffee we decided to go into town for a look around.  I wanted to get wool, and Gregory wanted to look in the bookstores.  I dropped him off at Kinokuniya, and went down to Lincraft on the next corner of George and Market Streets;  soon later I was on the way back.  Halfway up the escalators to Kinokuniya, I called Gregory.  He answered and I could hear he was out on the street.  "Where are you?" I asked.  "I'm on the corner of George Street and Market Street,  where are you?" he asked.  "I'm at Kinokuniya." I said.  "Stay where you are.  I'm coming back."  I got off the up escalator and straight onto the down escalator.  "You'll never guess who I just saw on the street!  He just walked past me and is coming your way" said Gregory. "Who?" I asked.  "Kevin Rudd!!!!" he said.  I looked up as he said it and saw:   Kevin Rudd, riding on the up escalator.  "Here he is here!" I said.  Kevin smiled and nodded at me.  I watched him pass, and watched him going up behind me towards Kinokuniya.  Or maybe Freedom.  The people behind me on the escalator were all looking in surprise and realising also that it was uncle Kev on the up escalator. 

"How many people has he got with him, do you think?" asked Gregory.  There were a few people in suits on the escalator, but I couldnt tell how many of them were with Kev.  Gregory thought that on the street there was one person walking with Kev, and a man behind them with the wire in his ear.  We were impressed because he must have walked at least a block, and we never saw Little Johnny walking among the great unwashed.

Things we should have said (a list compiled by Gregory after the fact):
- Kev!  Thanks for the 900 dollars!
- Kev!  Good ter see ya mate.  Nice suit! (Later he criticised Kev's suit for being too fruity)
- Kev!  Good to see you!  Why don't you come over for a cuppa?  Meet the cats...
- Kev!  We're having a party in the shoebox.  Come along! 

Party in the Shoebox is my birthday party (40th), scheduled for this weekend coming.

Happy with Kevin.  Good on him for his trip to the bookshop.  I'm an easy vote.  Hell I voted for him already.

We set out even though it looked like only a gap in heavy rain.  I have lost faith in umbrellas and instead wore a big sunhat to keep the rain off my face.  It was about 10pm.  In my luminous white raincoat I felt like Tomsk from the wombles, or Paddington Bear. 

On the second lap, the pub with no name was playing Piano Man. 
     "He said son can you play me a melody
     I'm not really sure how it goes
     But its sad and its sweet and I knew it complete
     When I wore a younger man's clothes...
Its corny but its poignant.  I sang along as we passed outside.  Gregory began to mutter about the radio station WSfm.  They play that song three times a day, he said.  "How can you say its a no repeat workday, and then play Piano Man three times?  How is that not a repeat?"  He asked me repeatedly.  "Its poignant," I told him, and to save face I added, "its unusual for being a walz.  Almost no pop songs are in 3/4." 

As we came up to the steepest part of the street, we stopped talking, and found ourselves surrounded by laughter.  People were coming down the street, out of bars, crossing the road, laughing.  Laughing in seperate groups, at seperate jokes.  A group of women at the crest of the hill were laughing so loudly they sounded like police sirens.  And right then over the crest of the hill came a police station wagon.  After it passed the women seemed to be even more overcome with laughter, or were they actually trying to sound like sirens?  I couldn't work out if they were making the noise or if I could still hear the police car.

Inside and outside Forresters, people were dancing.  A girl in skinny jeans tried to get the bouncer to dance with her.   Inside a couple leaned together drunkenly, while a girl shook her shimmy in a boob dance.  "Aha", said Gregory about the band, "we haven't heard the last of them."  "Uh huh," I said.  "What are they called?" "Aha." he repeated.  "Ah," I replied.

The little men were digging up Riley Street, they had the whole thing cordoned off from Albion back towards Oxford.  They had big lights and a crane and lots of other stuff.  Little men stood around leaning on shovels everywhere.  Gregory commented about the light:  "Those are called daymakers."  He and his mates lusted after them years ago so they could play cricket at night.

A man knelt on the ground at the entrance to the underground carpark for the Medina, painting yellow lines on the driveway.  A white cadillac was parked in the street.  I saw its fins which shimmered with recent rain.  The indicators flashed on and off as a man walked towards it.  A 45 year old car with keyless unlocking. 

We did four laps with only a sprinkle.  Its been raining ever since.

Today while walking to work I found a green jumper on the ground. 

There has been a long break from walking as Gregory has been sick with a chest infection, and then I went to Burrum for my grandmother's illness, death and funeral.  I arrived home again two kilos heavier.  We set off on Friday night for our first return to four laps.

We figured two laps would be a good place to start (baby steps).  Then we decided three would be better.  But at the top of the hill on the second lap, the heavens opened, the rain fell in sheets blown sideways by wind, my umbrella deconstructed, and we decided two would be enough.

We got to the bottom of the hill and the rain had stopped.  Oh well, we said, lets do three then.  I had scarf, cardigan, coat and umbrella to juggle.  During the rain, I wore the coat and had the cardigan and scarf tucked up underneath it like a huge pair of boobs.  This was to keep them dry.  The rain gone, I put the scarf back around my neck, carried the cardigan and broken brolly and wore the raincoat unzipped. 

At the top of the hill we found the rain reappearing, and my scarf gone.  "AAAHHHHH!"  I cried!  "My scarf!!!!"  I knitted it myself during the time that Nana was sick.  I then knitted another as she died and another as we prepared for the funeral.  It was a bountious time for neckwear.  This means the scarf had sentimental significance, and plus it was my only red one.  "Mehhhh!"   I cried.  "Right," said Gregory.  You go back looking for it, I'll keep going around looking for it, we'll meet in the middle."

I scurried down the hill, around the corner and up the other side without finding a scarf, and found Gregory, scarfless, coming the other way.  "Alright," said Gregory.  "Let's do another lap to make sure".  So we did four laps.  No scarf was found.

Saturday night, we set out again aiming at two laps.  I think this is because Gregory has a very sore knee, which catches when he walks.  On the first lap we passed a public telephone opposite the taxi stand on Fouveaux.  This phone is often used by people calling overseas.  Tonight it was off the hook.  We approached it curiously.  The handset was sitting on the shelf next to a half drunk bottle of water.  The phone number on the screen was a mobile phone.   Were was the caller?  Gregory hung up the phone!  What?  As we walked on, he told me about some bizzo where you ring a number and walk away, the phone can't then make calls in or out until you hang up. 

At the top of the hill I stopped in front of a white gauze scarf, dropped by some female passerby.  And walked on. 

Today we went for coffee around the corner.  On the way back, I found my own grey hoody with black butterflies, lying on the ground.  I must have dropped it! 

"Good thing your shoes are tied on," said Gregory.  "Otherwise it'd be "Mmmmmeeeeeerrrrrrrhhhh!!!!  My shoes!  I've lost my shoes!"  You'd be halfway down the street in your socks, going "meeeehhhh!!!! Where's my shoes!  We have to go back!  We have to do another lap and find my shoes!  Mehhhh!!!!" "

We knew it would be cold, and rugged up.  I put on my scarf and cardigan and put my raincoat over it, a milky, mother of pearl coloured number which is better at repelling wind than rain.  Gregory put on his Mets jacket.  Even so, when we stepped into the street the wind took hold of the edges of everything, and we felt the cold on our cheeks.  I felt the breeze even through my shoes, which are made of special breathable cloth to let your feet breathe, or some such nonsense.  Gregory was very pleased, he bought his Mets jacket last year just as winter ended.  "I'll have the whole of this winter to wear it now" he said. 

Being Sunday night, the pubs were all shut.  There was no one in front of the Tailors.  "I haven't seen Fuck Man in ages" commented Gregory.  As he has been saying that for a week or more, even when Tailors is open, he was justified in adding, as he always does:  "He must be fuckin' sick." The sausage man was gone.  He must have sold those last sausages.  "Remove", the spot which started as a comment written on the pavement, then turned overnight into a hole in the ground covered with boards and surrounded with temoporary barricades, has now settled into a more permanent structure:  the barricades are gone, the hole covered with ply sheeting is now surrounded by temporary 6 foot fencing.  It takes up most of the pavement now.   In the gutter nearby lay three discarded hot dog buns. 

After the first trek up Fouveaux Street hill, I loosened the scarf and unzipped the jacket.  By the third lap, I was carrying scarf, jacket and cardigan, and walking in short sleeves.  The wind is nice when your arms are hot.  On Crown street were more discarded hot dog buns.  The sausage man must have packed his car and driven away, madly throwing buns out the window.

The sausage man is very fat, I reckon he would fill a hula hoop with not an inch to spare.  He wears a chef's hat and a greasy white shirt, and fries up sausages and onions on a portable gas burner.  He piles it all into a bun with mustard and sauce.  One night on our second lap, he finally looked at us.  "You want one?" he asked.  I thought for a moment he was being generous.  Not that I wanted one, I love sausage sizzles to an insane degree, but we are walking for health and fitness, specifically to burn off calories, so the big fat sausage man is sufficient reminder to avoid his tempting wares.  After that one offer, he ceased to see us and focussed his eyes on people with an active and financial interest in sausages.

Except today, I came past on my own in the afternoon on the way up the hill to the supermarket.  To my surprise, there he was.  Gregory theorises that the sausause man comes out when the football is on.  And football is played on  Sunday afternoons at the Aussie Stadium, which Gregory still calls Sydney Football Stadium.  This being Sunday afternoon, it made sense the sausage man would be out.  Still, I was surprised to see him, so I said to him:  "You are here all night and all day too!"  He said yes, "I was here late last night, and here I am again," he said.  "I'll be here till I've sold off the last of me sausages."   He indicated that wasn't far to go.

One night we walked out of the building and were surprised by rain.  It may amaze you, dear reader, to hear that I got cranky, stamped my pretty foot, complained about getting my hair wet.  "Will you lend me six bucks?" I said to Gregory.  He would.  I went into the 7-11 under our building, and bought an umbrella.  We walked in the rain.  Its pretty to walk in the rain.  The streets are shiny, and the street lamps are surrounded by slow moving rain, in gold light.  A hot dog vendor has taken up sales outside the pub with no name, he wears a chefs hat and a huge white shirt, and sends great ribbons of smell down the street, of frying sausages and onions.   People crowd into the shelter outside the pub, smokers, outside drinkers, passers by without umbrellas, and hot dog buyers. 

After one lap, my six dollar umbrella began to disintegrate.  A lap only takes 15 minutes.  The handle came off in my hand, which was easily fixed, it just needed to be wound back on.  One of the eight spokes of the brolly disconnected from the fabric, which peeled back and began to flap in the wind.  "Who would have thought it!!!" laughed Gregory.  'A six dollar umbrella!  Coming apart!"  He seemed to think that was quite rich.  On the fourth lap, it blew inside out.  After our walk, I went back into the 7-11 laughing, to show the boy at the counter the umbrella I had bought an hour before.  He seemed to know that no comment was required of him.

It rained every night for awhile after that.   After about four days, my six dollar umbrella was attached on only three of the six spokes.  It was a strangely shaped and pathetic sight.  I threw it away.