The joys of that first swim of summer

OK, it's been summer here for a while but I've been busy cat sitting as well as being lazy on my annual break. But it's time to talk about swimming. Some people swim all year. Summer or winter, they disrobe and don the bathers and hop into the gym pool, or council pool, (always indoors and reeking disgustingly of chlorine) and laboriously do laps and laps of freestyle, backstroke, butterfly or whatever takes their fancy.

That's hard work. Needless to say, that's not me.

The laps are hard work but also disrobing when you know it's single figures outside, or at least well under 20 degrees. Eww. And the chlorine puts me off. Not only for olfactory reasons, but my psoriasis hates it.

No, for me swimming is a purely summer pleasure concerning salt water only, and thus to be looked forward to immensely. It is, for me, the best part of summer, which is usually too hot for me to get decent sleep or exercise after 7am.

I don't swim at a gym or council pool. I don't do laps. I do enjoyment at my local river baths or at one of Sydney's beaches, with or without surf.

It's all about the sheer joy of being enveloped in, and moving in, cool water on a hot day.

It was nearly two months ago when I slipped into the silken, calm, warm water at Balmoral beach for the first time this summer. It always surprises me, small-brained creature that I am, that immediately I'm in the water I become a mermaid or an otter, totally at home with the concept of propelling myself around with arms and legs, playing no-touch-the-ground with the sand. I don't even think about it.

There's a joyous weightlessness about swimming. In the water, I'm my sylph-like 20-something again, rather than a 55 year old trying to kill off the last 5 kilos that will take me back to my 30 year old weight. I feel energised, young, and, cellulite or not, gorgeous.

It's something to do with the sun on my skin, the salt water, the feel of sand beneath my feet (and at the unnetted part of Balmoral, the knowledge I'm shark bait. That sharpens you up).

Balmoral Beach, Mosman, Sydney. In November, few people were swimming during the week.

That first swim was definitely the Ahhhhhh moment. The water, at low tide, was warmed by the sun but I didn't have to go out far for my feet to no longer touch the sand. I did some exercises using my limbs against the heaviness of the water, I swam back and forth, I lay on my back and drank in the sun, the salt, the happy shrieks of children on the beach, and I felt totally at peace.

So during the summer I lazily swim in the river baths five minutes away or Balmoral, fifteen metres here or there of freestyle, or my own creations, sculling like a rower on my back or doing an underwater dog paddle sort of thing with my head out of the water. In the baths at high tide I dive or bomb from one of the platforms - bombing takes me back to my 11 year old self, the one who was unselfconscious.

Our local river baths.

One thing I don't like is putting my face in the water to swim; never have. My eyes hate it and I forget to breathe properly. When I dive or bomb my eyes are squeezed shut and don't open until my head pops up out of the water. I can manage very well with goggles and a snorkel however.

In the surf I love to feel the waves pounding against me. The big ones, eyes firmly squeezed shut, I dive under. The lesser I jump up with, lifted high and often with my arms wide and a big grin on my face. Then there are those that I body surf, or surf with a boogie board. And of course I mistime it here and there and get dumped by the surf, rolled along the sand clamping my eyes and nose shut, trying not to breathe until I'm rolled unceremoniously onto the shore (to the delight of teenagers). An hour in the surf, pushing and pulling against the tide, is hard work. We usually take our surf beach days in two 30 minute swims in the morning. That's enough to work up a huge appetite for lunch at a local cafe. (We love North Narrabeen beach by the way. My grandparents lived there when I was a kid and it's always felt like home.) My skin feels amazing after an hour in the surf, and so does my mind.

North Narrabeen, 9am on a Sunday. Bring it on!

Summer, I love you. When I'm in the water.

So she slept through my New Year's Eve party ...

Every New Year's Eve we have a party. Not a huge one, typically between 12 - 20 people. Because we live reasonably near the harbour and rivers, we pile into cars at midnight and head down to the riverside to watch the famous Sydney fireworks, then pile back in again, come home and the party starts to wind down.

Whingy, when she is in Sydney for NYE, expects (and gets) an invite to the party. The years she does come, she absents herself around 9.45 and goes inside to have a nap on our sofa until 11.30. This year was no different except that Mr Whingy also nicked off for a nap - into the spare bedroom.

Their excuse? They'd been up since 7am. Me, I'd been up since 5.30am as I had 8 cat sit visits to do, plus make food for the party. Did I nap? Nope. Didn't have the opportunity in the afternoon and wasn't tired until after midnight.

I do think it's the height of rudeness to leave a party and have a nap in the middle of it (unless you're over 75 and feeling it).  One of my other guests joining us for the first time, Posh, was horrified. "Does she do that every year?" she gasped, looking at Whingy on the sofa.

"Yup," I replied sadly.

"How bloody rude!"

My girlfriends Posh and Ms America felt that Whingy thought they were boring if she had to nick off for a sleep. They felt insulted. Old girlfriend Sushi has been to my NYE party for the last 20 years and knew what to expect from Whingy, though. She was amused rather than insulted, but surprised that Whingy hadn't asked for the music to be turned off so she could sleep in peace. Or rather, simply turn it off herself.

The rudeness didn't stop there. In 2017 we finally replaced our 30 year old sofa. The new one is a couple of centimetres longer. However, Whingy didn't think so. She complained the new sofa wasn't as long as the last one and she couldn't stretch out as much to have a sleep.

I hope the Whingies go interstate for this year's NYE. I can't NOT invite them to my party or there will be fireworks that put the Sydney NYE ones to shame. And I can't say to Whingy, "Do you mind not having a nap in the middle of my party as other guests feel insulted?" or she'll accuse ME of rudeness.

If only narcissists could see their real selves when they look in the mirror.

Mum and Max Oldaker, the last of the Matinee Idols

In her late teens and early 20s, my mother was an avid theatre-goer. She loved musical comedy, ballet, operetta, theatre and to a lesser extent opera, as the three very full scrap books full of theatre programmes she kept confirm.

These scrapbooks are gems, with the programmes carefully stuck in and occasionally kept companion by newspaper reviews of the performance.

Mum used to go with a group of girlfriends, and it wasn't uncommon for them to go to opening night, last night and sometimes a night in between. The programmes bear testament to that, as there are multiples of some of them. Those young girls stayed good friends all their lives, through husbands, divorces, children, whatever, and met once a year. Mum was the last of them; one by one over the last twenty years they have seen the final curtain.

She used to talk about those old days with love and affection; you could, after the performance ended, take a tram home by yourself close to midnight and feel safe. You might meet for coffee at Repens before the performance. And then there were the stars themselves.

Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh visited Sydney in 1948, and Mum, while she didn't see the play they were in (perhaps it was too expensive, or perhaps it booked out before she could get tickets), she did manage to get their autographs. And George Formby's.

When Mum spoke about her theatre-going days however, the name that cropped up the most was Max Oldaker.

Max who?

Max Oldaker. Tasmanian-born, he was the heart-throb of the theatre in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. He epitomised Tall, Dark and Handsome. He could act, he could sing, and was highly sought after for operetta roles and had a successful career in the UK as well as Australia. He understudied Rex Harrison in London in My Fair Lady, and the night Rex fell sick brought the house down; Rex made a damned quick recovery as Max did the role much better than he. With his fine tenor voice he considered doing serious opera, but it was in roles such as The Red Shadow in The Desert Song that his audience loved him.

What a looker! Max Oldaker as The Red Shadow in The Desert Song with co-star Joy Beattie. 1945

Max Oldaker as The Red Shadow in The Desert Song, 1945

Max Oldaker and Joy Beattie, stars of The Desert Song, 1945. I'd love to know the story behind this pic. Max is in theatrical makeup, Joy isn't, and they're in a bathroom.

Mum and her friends used to hang around the stage door for a sight of Max after the show was over. They made friends with Olga Deane, who ran the Sydney branch of the Max Oldaker Fan Club (sadly no remnants from that in Mum's amazing haul of theatre memorabilia). Olga was one of the Albert family of Albert Music fame, and very well-connected in the world of music and theatre.

She'd invite Mum and the girls to jam sessions at her house in (I think) Rose Bay. You'd go up a set of narrow stone stairs to a house perched up on the hill and see a sign: Here it is! Inside you'd sit wherever you could - on a chair if you were lucky, on a cushion on the floor if you weren't, and musicians would drop in, instruments in hand, after their shows and have an impromptu jam session. You wouldn't know who would turn up (Max never did) but you'd hear music and singing, get up and dance and have a great time. And catch the tram home at some ungodly hour early Sunday morning.

Jack Burgess at the piano with Max Oldaker. Max played the piano beautifully and composed music as well as having a fine tenor voice; a very talented man.

While Max was Red Shadow-ing the Actors' Benevolent Fund of Australia had organised a Popular Man contest to raise funds for charity, and entertainment organisations such as J. C. Williamson put up candidates. Max was working for them at the time and was their chosen man. Olga got Mum and the girls busy, selling buttons and badges with Max's face on them at the Theatre at nights. I don't think it was every night, but Mum certainly did her shift. I can't find any of the badges in the house but I'd be surprised if she didn't keep one.

Max won the contest - not to Mum's surprise - by raising the most money for charity.

By then Mum, aged 20, and the girls were getting on pretty well with Max. With their button-selling status and their 'inner circle' membership of the Max Oldaker Fan Club as friends of Olga, they were allowed into his dressing room, and would wait there while Max was on stage.

"In he'd come at the end of the act or the show," Mum used to say, "In full costume, with his face mask still on, and his cape wrapped around him. He'd fling it open with one arm, very theatrically.  He must have thought us a bunch of giggling girls but he was very nice and friendly to us."

Max gave Mum two signed photos of him being 'crowned' the winner - more about that later on.

Max was gay (a 'confirmed bachelor', as they used to say), but whether the girls knew that at the time I don't know - Mum knew he was gay when she spoke about him to me as an adult, but when she found that out I'm not quite sure. I suspect these young women from very ordinary families thought he was just behaving in the flamboyant and over the top way some actors do.

Max Oldaker clowning around, 1945

Mum followed his career for years, but after she married Dad she'd found a real life 'matinee idol' and the theatre programmes dwindled a bit. Dad wasn't into theatre like Mum was but the more he went with her the more he liked it.

When I was four, Max was playing in Half A Sixpence in Sydney and Mum took me to see a matinee performance. I don't remember a thing about it. I don't remember Mum taking me to the stage door to meet Max, and Max recognising her and greeting her by name after nearly twenty years and being absolutely delightful to both of us.

Several years ago I discovered that writer Charles Osborne had written a biography of Max: Max Oldaker, the Last of the Matinee Idols. I bought it for Mum for Christmas that year, read it after she did and something saddened me. I have just finished re-reading it, and I'm a little bit sad again and wonder if Mum was too. She never mentioned it. In a nutshell, here's what saddens me:

Max, you see, was embarrassed about the whole 'matinee idol' palaver. He had asked that the Max Oldaker Fan Club be wound up in 1944. I quote:

'To his dismay the Sydney Morning Herald in November published "a long and nauseating column which is disgusting - a degrading presentation of childishly adulatory material given to them by Olga Deane."'(Max's words)

In a letter (to his parents? It's not stated) Max writes, 'I've written to her and told her that there must be no compromise and that the whole of this nonsense must stop at once. I really think I should publish my views on the whole thing. I might have known that, for all Olga Deane's kindness, she is a person of no taste. I feel ashamed that I allowed her to start the club, but I suppose I couldn't have known what it would develop into. Now I hate it all. It's really not the sort of publicity I want.'

Ouch! I wonder what Mum thought when she read that, when Max had been so pleasant and welcoming to her and her friends - and Olga?

And as for what Max thought of being the winner of the Popular Man contest - here are Max's own words in a letter to Charles Osborne:

'At 12.30 am the trumpets blared and the ceremony began. Out of the gentleman's lavatory came little Max clad in a rather short regal robe which two attendants attempted to carry. Said robe was surmounted with an ermine collar which had provided a breeding ground and happy home for many generations of J.C. Williamson moths. My dear, the dais shook, the crown wouldn't fit and poor little Max felt most embarrassed. Kathleen Robinson, the actress-manageress of the Minerva Theatre, "kreowned" me, and we were both convulsed when the wretched thing would insist on coming to rest over my right eye as I made my epic speech. Many silly speeches were made about me…  The photographs of the ceremony were devastating, and I look positively repulsive in a crown.'

Max Oldaker, winner of the Popular Man contest, with his badly-fitting crown on 31 October 1945. Also in the photo, Jack Cazabon, Peter Finch and Jack Burgess

Looking rather embarrassed, Max Oldaker being 'kreowned' by Kathleen Robinson, 31 October 1945. Also in photo are Dick Bentley, Strella Wilson, John Cazabon, Wayne Froman, Jack Burgess, Hal Lashwood, Marshall Crosby, Leonard Bullen

The back of the photo above, signed for Mum who had volunteered her time to help Max win the Popular Man contest.

Max must have gritted his teeth when he personally autographed two photographs of the ceremony for Mum.

Max's attitude to his longtime fans mellowed, you'll be happy to know. By the time Mum took me to see Half A Sixpence, Charles Osborne writes about the show, 'In Sydney, he had his old star dressing room back again at the Theatre Royal, and was touched to find so many fans from the forties crowding around the stage door every night.'

If you want to find out more about Max, read the book by Charles Osborne. Max had a real wit and style about him, and was a prolific letter writer who could tell a good story against himself. His letters are a delight. You'll find several copies for sale on the interweb.

Barry Humphries wrote the Foreword in Charles Osborne's book, and I'll share a bit of it here. It's 1956 and Barry is working with Max in a show called Around the Loop:

'"How do you manage, Max," I once asked him, "to smile with such sincerity at the curtain call on a thin Wednesday matinee?"

"Dear Barry, it’s an old trick Noel (Coward) taught me, and it never fails.” He demonstrated, standing in the middle of the dressing room in his Turkish towelling gown, eyes sparkling, teeth bared in a dazzling smile. “Sillycunts,” beamed Max through clenched teeth, bowing to the imaginary stalls. “Sillycunts,” again, to the circle, the gods and the Royal Box. 

“It looks far more genuine than ‘cheese’, dear boy,” said Max, “and you’ve just got to hope that no one in the stalls can lip read.” I couldn’t help thinking of all my mother’s friends at those Melbourne matinees, their palms moist, hearts palpitating as Max Oldaker, the Last of the Matinee Idols, flashed them all his valedictory smile.’

I love it! I have real regrets that I don't remember meeting The Last of the Matinee Idols when I was four.

There's not much on the interweb about Max, sadly.

• A few bio pages.  This one here is quite good: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/oldaker-maxwell-charles-max-11296
• Several images - and I have added all that I have from Mum's stash here to share them with the world
• And only one free-to-listen recording of him singing that I can find, from 1929:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S19My765AnY  (Blogger won't embed it - it can't find it!!) If you're in Melbourne the State Library of Victoria has a CD of Max's songs.

Max died of heart failure in his home town of Devonport in 1972 at the age of 64. In nearby Launceston the Princess Theatre has a tribute wall for Max, with memorabilia and photographs.

G and I visited Launceston last year, and while I was in the Princess Theatre looking at the Max wall, I phoned Mum and described it all to her, and took photos to show on my return (they are reasonably rubbish photos, taken through glass, so I'm not posting them here). I'm so glad I did as Mum was gone herself two months later.

Who else remembers Max Oldaker and Olga Deane? Is there anyone out there who went to Olga's place late at night for a jam session, or whose parents did? At the risk of sounding like Olga and upsetting Max's ghost, I think the chap could do with some publicity. He was very talented and a true theatre star of the era. And dammit, he was handsome. That's reason enough.

On a slow boat to …Sydney

Once upon a very long time ago I used to take the ferry to and from high school (aka St Trinian's… although it wasn't nearly as much fun) every weekday. Or, rather, those days when I wasn't suffering too much from 'nerves' to go to school. Gosh, I had quite an impressive absentee record when I look back.

But I digress.

This post is about Sydney's ferries. Here's what a modern Sydney ferry looks like:

Nice enough, but rather soulless compared to the lovely old ferries I used to use as a teenager. The 'Lady' and 'K' series were built in the early 1900s through the Edwardian era, and featured padded and reversible seats downstairs, painted wooden seats upstairs which curved nicely around your bum, and, excitingly, a view down the stairs to the smelly, noisy and quite glorious diesel engine. You'd hear the bell the captain rang telling the engineer to give it some welly, put it in neutral, or in reverse.

This is the lovely old Karrabee, which was the ferry I usually rode home on:

She's painted in the colours I remember too, and went off the run in the 1980s as the oldest ferries made way for the current batch. The Karrabee memorably sank in the Australia Day Ferryboat Race in 1984 but managed to make it back to Circular Quay. Refloated, and fixed up, she was sold and became a static floating restaurant up at the Central Coast. Sadly she wasn't well-maintained at her new home and gradually deteriorated into the mud she rested on, and was broken up nearly ten years ago.  Find out more about her here.

These old ladies had dual controls - the captain could change ends, so that when he berthed at Circular Quay he could stroll the top deck and use the wheel at the other end, simply sailing out from the wharf rather than having to reverse and turn as the modern ferries do.

Riding the ferries was a big thrill when I was a little girl, before my high school years. A trip on the ferry was a trip to town in the school holidays, to see a movie or meet with friends and family. Ferries meant a treat, with the journey as big an excitement as the movie or friends. And 'town' was much nicer then, with only a handful of high-rise towers and most buildings on a human scale.

Because I rarely use the ferries - I'm not a huge fan of the Sydney CBD and only venture in there when I have to for client stuff, or a few times a year to visit the Art Gallery of NSW, see a show or other activity only available in town - going for a trip on the ferry still has some of that childish thrill for me.

Is there a nicer way to travel to the city? I doubt it. When the sun's shining, even on a winter's day it's a lovely journey. You simply HAVE to slow down. You're not in a car cursing the other drivers and wondering if the parking station will be full. You're not on a bus with a fat man redolent of body odour plonked beside you and oozing flesh over your legs and arms. It's probably sad for the ferries on my run that they AREN'T crowded. Even in peak hour, you rarely reach 'standing room only'.

Today I had to head into town for a client meeting and caught a ferry soon after 10am. I was one of about 15 people on it. Likewise on the return journey at nearly 2pm. And this is during school holidays, so about 1/3 of those travelling were kids with parents.

There was a chill breeze this morning so I sat inside on my trip to town, relishing the sun sparkling on the water, eyeballing the lovely waterfront houses at Birchgrove, enjoying the choppy water under the Harbour Bridge which boaties call The Washing Machine and missing our grumpy old boat Bootle (which we sold earlier this year).

The sun had hit full capacity on the way home, so I sat out the back with the breeze on my face, enjoying my surroundings. Sydney's main attractions always look nicer from the water. As the ferry left tourist-infested Circular Quay behind it my spirits lifted.

I could have taken this photo without the ferry's superstructure, but I chose not to. Likewise this:

Through The Washing Machine and over some nice bouncy wake from another ferry, around the corner heading away from Balmain's Thames St Wharf I saw these buildings, which have received a very jolly coat of paint since I last saw them - which must have been months and months ago:

I like this photo - you can only really see Sydney Tower in the background; just a hint of the Horrible Highrise that is our CBD these days.

Even though I was using the ferry for work, the trip on the water made me feel as if I were playing truant from my business, which was a superb and uplifting feeling.

If I didn't hate the soulless, cement-ridden modern Sydney city centre so much, I'd find excuses to ride on the ferries more often. I look back at my time at St Trinian's and realise the ferry rides were the best part of those four hated years and I was privileged to use such a pleasant mode of public transport. There are times when it really is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

Oh frabjous day! My gorgeous little car, more of a pet than a form of transport, is home again from the panelbeater's. She's shiny and fixed and the paint match is superb.

Because my husband is away at the moment, I had to catch public transport to the panelbeater's. What is normally a 25 minute drive took 1 hr and 40 minutes. Phew.

This is a bit memorable because for the first time in years I caught a Sydney bus. Stop laughing.

It's not that I'm a total car freak and never use public transport, because I enjoy taking the train into town, except for peak hour when it's seething with the great unwashed (sometimes literally I believe).  The train isn't as awful for my sociophobia as the bus. The carriages are quite wide, and there seems to be a little more legroom between seats. Mostly I can get a seat to myself, and I can listen to music, look out the window or read, which is a lot less stressful than driving through Sydney traffic into the centre of the city. It's also a lot faster and stops a lot less often than the bus, so you get to where you're going quicker than by bus.

Unless of course you're going to somewhere the train doesn't service.

Travelling by bus used to be easy. You'd step on board, give the driver some money, he'd grunt and give you a ticket and change where appropriate, you'd find a seat or hang on for dear life to a strap and all would be well.

Now, however, several bus services and major interchanges are cashless. You have to buy your ticket in advance, and no, there are no ticket machines at the bus stop, even if it's a major interchange. That would be too bloody logical. You have to find someone who sells them, usually a newsagent.

I had a sinking feeling that the interchange at Parramatta station would be a PrePay one, so while walking to my own train station stopped at the newsagent for a bus ticket. She didn't have any single tickets, only packets of ten, and buggered if I'd pay $45 for a single bus ticket.

The ticket seller at my own station said some bus drivers would accept cash if you had coins and smiled nicely, but she also only sold packets of ten.

At Parramatta train station there were ticket machines selling tickets to anywhere, so I lined up only to find that none of them was for a bus service. By now I was starting to be not in a good shape. People all around, no bloody signs saying Buy Your Bus Tickets here.  I made myself do some deep breathing and found a sign which looked initially unhelpful at the railway ticket office: We Do Not Sell Bus Tickets. Squinting, I made out a map underneath and ran over to it, discovering that the newsagent across the way in the station sold tickets.

When I said I wanted a single ticket to Gladesville that caused consternation. Where was Gladesville? I had to explain. I also felt a twit when I blurted out, "No, I don't know how many sections it is, I haven't taken the bus before!" and added quickly, "Not from here anyway."

Ticket finally in hand, I waited for the bus, hopped on, validated my ticket and like most of us as the bus was empty, got a seat to myself.

Two stops on a fat bloke got on board. I could be very PC and say he was morbidly obese but really, he was a fat bloke, almost as wide as he was tall.

To my horror, he thumped down next to me. Nearer the back of the bus were empty seats, lots of them, but obviously exercise like walking down to get to them wasn't his thing. I wondered briefly if he was a bit OCD and I was sitting in "his" seat, the one he always had.

I'd had the sociophobia under control but when a really big person sits within millimetres of me, so I can feel their body heat and almost their pulse, I tense up, and I did then, easing myself as close to the window as I could.

Then I had to put my hand over my mouth. Herbert! The pong!  Not only fat, but smelly. Old body odour, maybe the same shirt for the third day running? Whatever it was - Whoof!

Cruel and possibly Nazi as it sounds, I pondered then and there the invention and senate approval and installation of Personal Hygiene Meters on public transport. Robotic, probably, with a sensor that takes a sample of the air closely around you as you walk on board. If you smell too offensive, the buzzer beeps and sorry, mate, you can't board. Not until you put some deodorant on or otherwise get rid of the pong. Or...ah...this is good...have a Stinky Section at the back of the bus and put all the stinkers together. Maybe that would help them realise how much their smell offends others. The Stinky Section would have extra aircon to draw the smell out.

The PHMs would be easy to police on buses, but perhaps a matter for the guard on trains. Stinkers go in the Stinky Carriage -! Yay!

Or... charge them extra. Make them pay for being offensive to others. >:-)

Anyway, Stinker got off at Rydalmere and I started to breathe again and expanded to fill a bit more of the space around me. Thankfully I managed to keep my seat to myself on a half-empty mid-afternoon bus, but I was glad to step off the bus and into the rain, and walk in fresh air to where Minerva was waiting for me. It's been a long month without my four-wheeled friend, but Jeez, was today a loooong afternoon!

Sydney's getting more bike-friendly

It was heartening to hear in the news a couple of days ago that the City of Sydney Council is planning a more thorough off-road network of bike routes. Cycling in the heart of the city is terrifying. I'm not game to try it. It's bad enough driving through town, and even being a pedestrian has its moments when cars jump red lights.

So here's the plan so far. In a nutshell:

'At the heart of this commitment is a safe, convenient and sustainable 200 kilometre network (including 55 kilometres of separated cycleways) that we are building to reduce road congestion, cut emission and improve public health.

We have designed the network to improve connections between employment, recreation and residential destinations to make cycling an attractive transport choice.

To build this network the City has allocated $76 million over the next four years.'

The map above shows the central business district. It's a start! Some of it is already in place, like these lanes in King St:

Sydney City still has a fair way to go though. Parramatta City Council has some fab bike routes which we've used at weekends. Its central business district is far more bike friendly.

In an inspired move (I say inspired because it's rare that our state government does anything inspirational) the T-Way bus system that connects the north west of Sydney via special lanes and bus-only roadways and flyovers comprises cycle lanes. It means you can ride, should you feel fit enough, from Parramatta to Richmond without having to go through door zones or traffic.

The M7 motorway which links the northwest with the southwest has a specially built, separate cycle path running parallel to the motorway so cyclists can take the M7 route but be totally separate from cars and traffic. My friend Julie who works for the Roads & Traffic Authority (RTA) says that cyclists still insist on using the hard shoulder of the M7 instead of the cycle path though - why, I don't know; you get the same exits whether you're on a bike or in a car. I can't imagine why you'd want to risk your life riding in high speed traffic when you could have a brand new cycle path without gravel, broken glass or any other obstacles.

Wandering around the RTA website I found this little handbook for cyclists.

New Year's Eve Sydney Style

My mother is fortunate to live near the water in Sydney... and it's only a short drive or a 15 minute cycle to a fab place where you can watch the New Year's Eve fireworks on the harbour. I grew up in this house and do miss it, particularly when it's party time, as it's a lot bigger than our little shoebox t'other half and I live in, and has a great balcony for parties. One of which I threw for some friends on New Year's Eve.

A muggy summer evening, the clouds had rolled away by the first round of fireworks at 9pm (for the kids, really). Because it wasn't raining we did the traditional thing and cooked a BBQ. I augmented this with a Tourtiere, the wonderful French-Canadian pork pie which is traditionally a staple on Christmas Eve for Quebecois (I discovered this recipe courtesy of an old Quebecois boyfriend). If I get my act into gear and it's not scorching weather I make it for Christmas Eve, but realistically we usually serve it on NYE/Hogmanay, when the Christmas turkey feast is long digested and our stomachs are ready for another round of amazing comfort food. I also offered a massive potato salad and green salad.

No celebratory Aussie BBQ would be complete without a Pavlova, the meringue dessert named after ballerina Anna Pavlova, and made in her honour when she visited Australia back in my grandmother's day. A Pav is a flippin' great round meringue decorated thickly with whipped cream and whatever fresh fruit takes your fancy. This 12" Pavlova I chose to decorate with strawberries, kiwifruit and blueberries. It was just delicious; and somehow not too rich or sickly either.

Then it was time for the fireworks and we loaded into cars and headed down the road. We hadn't brought the bikes with us - 2 cats, a dog, overnight stuff, and all the food to feed the hordes was enough we figured. I was happily oiled on Domaine Chandon NV by fireworks time but sober enough to hold a camera. I've photographed these fireworks every year since 1988. I've gone through film SLRs and digi SLRs on tripods, lugging my heaviest tripod in recent years in case of wind. I have so many photos of fireworks from this particular place they all blur together after a while. This year, I almost convinced myself to just watch the display instead of obsessively taking pics of it. I couldn't do it. I took more than 200 photos. I'm insane. Here are some of them anyway. These are all handheld on my compact digital, by the way, as I left the tripod at Mum's. So I used the 'take a deep breath and hold it' technique and the results aren't too painful. I won't be doing anything with them (I've entered competitions in previous years with fireworks pics).

Boats rock on their moorings in the gentle, almost non-existent breeze. You can't hear the tinkle of their rigging above the stomach-rattling booms overhead.

A myriad of colours. 3,000kg of fireworks went off over Sydney this time. Waste of money? Maybe - but damn it was good!

Blue and gold together.

That's the Sydney Harbour Bridge; it gets festooned in fireworks and traffic is stopped for the duration of the display.

In between 'Boom"s you could hear a chorus of "Ahhh" from the hundreds we shared our little not-well-known spot with.

Getting near the end now... more of them were set off together, and the sky became ablaze.

The mix of colours was enchanting; these pics almost capture it, but you had to be there, as they say.

Heading for the grand finale...

With fireworks exploding from the Bridge and this year a first, exploding either side as well. Not a great photo as I zoomed in and held my breath but it sorta kinda grabs the moment.