I've been thinking of a wide, wide bright blue grosgrain ribbon that gets tied around the waist of great dresses, dresses like the ones that LT and I bought at the Vintage Bazaar. But also around other things like metal statues. I don't know why. I don't know how many metres it would take but it's the thing that I want to buy most right now.
Yesterday we could see them through the windows along the walkway of the wharf moving manicured trees in terrcotta pots across the apron. Today they were moving them back. Moving them on trolleys into white sided trucks away again. I don't know what happened to the manicured trees in the meantime. I suspect a party happened while they stood in the background.
Off kilter weekend. My head is a box filled with nothing.
I drive down Glebe Point Road, procrastinating. While eating whitebait fritters I read about Rowan Gillies, the head of MSF. It’s a profile mostly done while he’s in Ivory Coast. Every operation involves an amputation. I think these things: how grotesque and vital life there must be, it’s hard to imagine guerillas still seeming dangerous while speaking French, he is the same age as me, I bet MSF get an upsurge in donations now.
Watched The Upside of Anger. Resented the implication that women with husbands are sweet and nice until they get left and then they turn into bitter alcoholics. Still, loved an older female character that’s allowed complex, honest relationships, and some self obsession, even if they are borne of hostility. Compared to Ivory Coast, though, not a lot at stake. Made myself a vodka tonic and marveled at the resurrection of Kevin Costner.
Jarvis says: I am not Jesus though I have the same initials. He also says: I’ve got some matches if you ever need a light.
Barmuda for breakfast. Curly-haired guy invites us to his cabaret show. It’s called The Latte King Sings. Annie says she sees him around all the time and that he always gives her a wink. The last time I was in a taxi on my way to the airport I looked across at the car beside us and he was driving it - crazy, curly-haired Barmuda waiter. I had to look away before he saw me. I don’t know why.
We've been on the court for 50 minutes, it's not yet 7.30am and it's hot. Too hot. I think it's the heat making my shots loop but really it my lead feet, and lack of follow through. Maryann goes to get Gatorade while I sit down in the shade and stretch my back. Sand sticks to my socks and calves. She returns with a banana. We share it in the shadow of the SCG. She thinks the US and China will end up at war. That's what her website it about. When she gets to Columbia she's going to join lots of clubs: tennis, netball, and skiing. She thinks she needs to meet people. I think she needs to stop.
Hamish McBain calls me Sally Dressing. He's a logical mispronouncer. Salad dressing is sally dressing, and I'm Sally. He talks about Qantas, and flying to Thailand. He giggles. He's three and a half years old and I'm recovering from the pressure of almost running out of petrol on the bridge. The North Sydney petrol station is now a building site, and the nearest one is at Artarmon. Who knew?
In the morning I drive back down the highway with the rest of the north shore and flick between 702 and Radio National. Virginia Trioli begins every interview by asking for thoughts on the Soceroos win. I wonder how Frank Farina might be feeling. I last about 20 mins on am, then flick. They're reading the weather to Toy Death, a band that makes music only by playing childrens' toys. I feel instantly at home.
Trev rushes in after sound check to eat some dip and get changed into his singlasses. We're trying on our new frocks, talking about jobs and boys, well designed salad servers and other cities, attempting to recover from the Vintage Bazaar. We drink white wine and eat haloumi salad. I can't finish it because I've snacked while lying on the couch at my house. Faith's eyes are wide a lot of the time, like she's daring you to disbelieve her.
We get in a cab and head off in support of The Hussies. Word is they've got new songs. Prudie's mum and dad are there. And her little sister. The sister is having work done on her teeth. They're going to break her jaw and stretch it out before it sets back in place. She'll be wired up for three months, including her first month at uni, eating and drinking through a straw. Defer, we say. The oral surgeon is the father of her brother's girlfriend. We hope he's not just doing it for the experience.
The Hussies may well have new songs but I still only remember Surfin Safari and the one that sounds like Beck. They bring Surfin Safari up the front of the set. I like to think it's partly because of the influence of Noonie.com on the independent music scene. Lisa is dancing wildly up the front, but we stand in the back and nod and sway. Trev says that the pub have already asked them back for another gig. The Hussies rock, and their crowd puts money over the bar.
On the way home we stop at the Crispy Inn. I buy a chicken pie for now, and a sausage roll because I know I'll need it in the morning. I put the sausage roll in the yellow clutch and head off across the park.
I wake late on Sunday morning. I've denied Pickle glory in the dog show. There's an unopened packet of bread sticks in the Bruce Springsteen bag and a cold sausage roll in the yellow clutch.
It's hard to demonstrate superior clapping while playing guitar. It's not until he sheds it for one of the final songs that I remember what I love about him. Let's call it lanky androgynousness. At Livid once Brisbane friends were horrified by the suggestion that his side clap at hip level with torso curving off in the opposite direction created an air of sexual ambiguity. Of course he's not gay, but he clearly understands the power of camp. He spent winter Sunday evenings sitting cross legged on the floor in his pyjamas transfixed by Ashes to Ashes on Countdown like the rest of us.
The solo songs, though, they have no beginning, no middle and no end. Some of them are catchy for sure, and in your mind you can see the movie of his recent life when he sings them. You even get the feeling that they're honest. When he sings that he just wants to wish you/her well you believe him and you think that he's a genuine guy in that Neil Finn kind of way. But there's no crescendo. No moment.
Actually, that's not true. There is a moment but it's more about his skill at cutting down the turkeys who yell out. He starts preamble about how O Brother Where Art Thou led to writing a particular song. Guys want to be Clooney, girls want their boyfriend to be Clooney, he says. Not yours? No, that's 'cos she wants you to be more like me. And then he apologises. Candy from a baby.
On the way home Ben and I listen to the Tony Delroy quiz in the taxi. There's a question something like: which state of America has the most desert? Mexico, I say. Ben says that Mexico is a country in its own right. I'm momentarily surprised, but then I remember the Bruce Springsteen song about the drug runners getting caught going over the border, realise that he's right and change my answer to Arizona.
I bet bloody Claudia Carvan’s washing machine never breaks down. There’s got to be a planet in retrograde somewhere. I must remember to consult Mystic.
What I learnt at the Australian Republican Movement trivia night: - they have bad carpet at the Hellenic Club - the Eiffel Tower is 304 metres high but can expand to a height of 314 metres depending on the weather. - ARMs are nice, but not very cool - ARMs will do anything for money, including singing God Save the Queen in public. - There’s a 79 year old member of the ARMs called Elizabeth who returned from Europe recently, went home, saw on “her internet” that Kevin Rudd was doing a talk at the AGNSW that evening and hot footed it over there. (He was lovely.)
What I learnt from lunch with the guides: - Gowings is gone, apparently, and obviously it's a bit of a shame especially since it’s part of our lexicon as in: gone to Gowings. - Volunteers at Taronga Zoo are allowed to walk the dingoes, but sometimes before a volunteer even realises the dingo spies a duck and eats it. In order to avoid this volunteers now have to shout: duck alert. - A chimp at Taronga Zoo recently had a baby, but she was an inexperienced mother and left it momentarily unattended. Before she could get back to it, the other chimps tore the baby apart. - the majority of the guides are ex-school teachers.
What I learnt at the hairdressers: - the majority of hairdressers have ipods - Steve the colourist doesn’t like Kate Bush - Steve the colourist is only 30 - lots of people are probably younger than me - I’m easily talked into buying product that I don’t really need, especially by Steve the colourist
I didn’t really blog on my last holiday but I did take notes about all the great and curious things that crossed our path. They’re no longer timely, but I’ll feel less anxious if they do make it to their intended. I’d like to thank Gina and Scott who got right into the spirit of things instigating a game of spot the incident that will end up on the blog. Sadly, I think the blunt stick outside Anne Franks house is funny only to those present so I’ve neglected to include that particular incident.
Notes from a trip to Scotland via Amsterdam for the two Bell weddings: - sat next to a grumpy Chinese woman from Hong Kong to Heathrow. Wouldn’t let me out to pee. When they served breakfast she stirred apricot yoghurt into her tea.
- out the window The North Sea, and then another plane. Below us but close enough to see that it is Singapore Airlines. Later green, green, green fields and the three waving arms of wind farms.
- forced to re-evaluate Chris Martin based on interview on the in-flight entertainment, even began to think that XY might not be so bad. Later found myself crying to Finn Bros and realised that I was just tired.
- overriding image of Amsterdam: kids in a bucket on the front of the parents’ bike. The best example was a pregnant woman with her four kids in the bucket.
- why is it that I can get out of bed, go to the supermarket and do normal stuff when I’m on holidays and enjoy it? It feels like a luxury - and they have great bread choices.
- I sleep on the sofa bed beneath the big windows and the cool breeze from the canal flows over me.
- I have carpet burns on the back of my heels from walking too carefully down the narrow staircase
- everyone is beautiful (and yes, Michael Rowland, mostly young – what do they do with people when they reach 50? I think they have to move out of the city centre because they can’t navigate the staircases any more – see previous point) and they have gorgeous apartments that you can see into as you walk past, and they have books, whole walls of them. They sit outside on their front steps on sunny Sundays on their well-designed chairs and read those books. And it’s quiet.
- a street poster says In God Wet Rust
- I’m almost woken by a man dragging his suitcase along the cobblestones, and then properly woken by the sun through the windows onto my bed. If there’s a signature sound to Amsterdam it’s the chugga, chugga, chugga of wheeled suitcases on cobblestones.
- gin and tonics and European quality snacks each afternoon in the apartment, and Interpol as the soundtrack to silences when we stare out the window at the boats on the passing stream and the cyclists and pedestrians who are not
- when it’s time to head out for the evening there’s no hot water so we just change, put on some slap and in an instant we’re sweating our way to Café Americain. - Inside the grand arches of the café there are high backed chairs. When you’re sitting in them you can’t see across the room at eye level, just upholstery and then the deco space ships of lights above them. It’s all cream, brown and turquoise and the light is amber. Amazingly there’s a simulated open fire right beside us and we flee outside to the square to drink rose. The air is cool and the service is bad.
- Three crosses on everything. The symbol of the city. Fat crosses, like they’re stuffed. Like an overstuffed couch. Like the couch on which I like to lie in the afternoons and early evenings.
- I wear the orange and green skirt and it feels right for Amsterdam, for Holland.
- Febo: a vending machine of a store where behind every glass window is a version of a chicken croquette, and behind them is a man constantly refilling the windows. All roads lead to Febo.
- Dangling our feet in the pond in the park between museums and watching the constantly barking bulldog. The blond kid wearing a bandana, a mask and toting two guns is busy running around the edge of the pond. It’s impossible to tell who he belongs to because he doesn’t ever stop.
- Van Gogh sought to create “recollections of paintings; but the recollection, the vague consonance of colours that harmonise in spirit but not in actual fact.” It talks to me.He shot himself in the chest and took two days to die, with Theo at his side.
- There are only three existing photos of Vincent, and only one from the time in his life when he was an artist. There’s a giant reproduction of it in the Van Gogh Museum. He is the figure in the far bottom right wearing a tall hat and with his back to the camera.
- He did 70 paintings in his final two months, and thought he was a burden so he wanted to paint motifs that people would like, for money, for himself and for Theo. When Theo died his wife allowed him to be buried alongside Vincent. She said he belonged to Vincent as much as to her.
- He painted the sunflowers to adorn the wall of his spare room when Gaugin was coming to stay.
- In Amsterdam we keep running into the same young black woman with a foxy dog: at the G-spot, at the café opposite our apartment, and then in the park. Gina and I concoct a story that we’re spies and trailing her is part of our mission. The fact that neither of us ever have any idea where we are in the city, of course, if all part of the elaborate plot. Scotty is dubious.
- Tennis: US Open on the couch. Drinks and dinner combine with jetlag to mean that I can’t stay awake and don’t even know if this is a match that I’ve already seen.
- The hot water gets fixed: clean hair. No better feeling.
- Cut to Scottish Highlands. I almost understand the ritual and tradition of a wedding now. I’m not sure whether it’s about being in the north of Scotland, or in a castle but it feels right and fitting in a way that it rarely does at home. Perhaps it’s meant to be about showing off, about showing the wealth and hospitality of your family. And in Scotland that later seems undercut by everyone flinging each other around the dance floor.
- Ardross Castle. We sleep above the horses in the converted stable loft. My best friends sharing a ‘house’ by a castle in Scotland for three days. I’m woken by whinnying, and then LT’s laughter through the wall. The first thing spotted out the window is a peacock. Perfect. Then we go for a walk and come across a red toadstool with white spots. Begin to keep an eye out for Timmy the dog.
- Gorgeous warm Scots people. Charlotte’s mum who holds your hand whenever she’s talking to you, no matter what she’s saying.
- The cousins. It’s sweet Andy’s 25th birthday. He’s a building engineer but he wants to be an astronaut. He’s English but he’s wearing a kilt because Charlotte wanted lots of boys in kilts at her wedding. Thank you Charlotte.
- Johnny the Liar. Johnnys: often liars in my experience. It keeps it interesting. And imagine not being able to keep up with the mental athletics. I’m putting it down to the accent. The Scots were the first ones to sell opium to the Chinese he says. In my head: I don’t fucking think so.
- They serve a second meal of mash, onion and lamb halfway through the evening. It’s called Stovies.
- After the ceremony when Charlotte and Dr Dave go to get into the car there’s a moment when they can’t agree on who gets in which side. Charlotte: “I’ve got a dress on. I’m not sliding over.” By the time they’re leaving the reception though, they’ve got it sorted. Phew.
- We stand underneath the fir trees in the mist and see them off. The late and elusive piper who has missed the church and most of the reception has his moment leading them out to the car. Later, at LT and Trev’s wedding I find myself seated next to Gordon, their piper, and I recount the story of his recalcitrant counterpart. “What was his name?”, he snaps, affronted that this unreliable fellow could be degrading the reputation of pipers the length of Scotland. I think it’s lucky that I never knew it but suspect that Gordon will find it out.
- As we drive through the Highlands towards Gairloch and Sheildag it pours rain and the water runs in speedy mirrored streams down the side of mountains. As we round a bend we come across a rural fire truck turned on its side in a ditch at the edge of the road. We slow to see if they need help but a woman in uniform and rain hat waves us cheerily on while her colleague appears to be lifting himself out of the now horizontal side window.
- In Ullapool we lose the Ashes. Not us, of course but the Aussie cricketers. We sit glued to the screen in the Seaforth Hotel eating haggis and watching Kevin Peteresen waltzing up the steps to No. 10 jug of beer in hand.
- Two days before LT and Trev’s wedding, at Sheildaig Loch. Baz the Jack Russell-ish terrier is the Lodge’s dog. He’s almost our friend but remains aloof and after dinner trends aggressive, mainly towards Scotty’s leg. A funny attic room with four different kinds of chintz and a bathroom down the hall. There’s a four course meal served in the dining room overlooking the loch. Gina makes the dour eastern European waiter repeat the dessert options because she thinks the way he says cheese board sounds like cheese boat. She laughs and laughs and laughs. We’re the youngest there by a mile. Everyone else is there for fishing or deer stalking. There’s a man in tweed knickerbockers at breakfast. He’s wearing a monocle and binoculars and stops eating his poached egg to put the binoculars to his eye. We forgive him because we’ve observed him being so attentive and talking animatedly to his wife, like they were on a first date, him still trying to win points with charm. She’s the woman who had to shout “goats cheese and something” four times in the restaurant the previous evening doing the volume interpretation for the eastern European as old Binoculars is deaf as a post. Gales of silent laughter.
- So that’s where the notes end, because we got to Glasgow and there was no time to observe, only to do.
- Besides the previously reported fish supper incident and Gordon the piper I have no real memory of the LT and Trev wedding. It’s a blur of fun.
- What is Glasgow? It’s a moment in a club dancing to the Doobie Brothers: “without love, where would you be right now?" How right they are.
I don't understand the Artemis story well enough to appreciate it but Tom says the dancers are clever and I'm prepared to believe him. In the middle, they tell the story anyway, in spoken words. I want her to stop speaking, and for the curtain to be pulled across. Gina says that the dogs would have known not to eat him because he wouldn't have smelled like a deer. I doubt this.
During the performance the woman next to us takes out a sandwich and starts eating it. She holds a piece of paper up in front of her mouth so that the dancers can't see her eating. Instead they will just wonder why that woman is shielding her face with a piece of paper, and of course that will be less distracting. Logic is subjective.
On the way home four mounted police cross the intersection and head up the hill towards the Hollywood. I think: don't let them jog, they either walk or trot. The horse is the motif for the week. There was only one horse, really, at Flemington. Four horses passing the shops of artfully designed furniture, and Pegasus on my chest.
I emerged from the house clutching a foil package of last night's mussels. There was a tradesman standing on the footpath. Dark floppy hair and librarian glasses - he was more English lecturer (or Jill's Dave) than plumber. Hi, great beads, he said. There's a man who knows accessories, I thought. Different to the boy on Sunday night who failed to acknowledge my Bruce Springsteen bag, even though we were talking about music and bands and gigs and festivals. I even put it at counter level (twice) to ostentatiously remove things. Nil response. Tried a different accessories-related ploy. Removed the large red perspex Treece bangle and put it on the bar table. Nothing. Again, at the pizza place, in the middle of the table, by the pizza. Nada. Actually, that should probably be niente.
Perhaps the plumber was just desperate for a distraction from our not-drawing-breath-neighbour. She seems to have more than her fair share of tradesman and one can't help wondering why. Annie thinks it's so that she can talk more and more loudly to annoy us. As I was packing the mussels in the kitchen we could hear her on the footpath. She's dreadful, Annie said.
Avi cooked chicken in yoghurt sauce. JB ate his in front of the television but we sat around the kitchen table and strung beads onto leather and read Brag and talked about the bands that we want to see. Noonie wrote my birthday card right in front of me, then sealed the envelope, wrote my name on the front and pushed it across the table. I unsealed it and read what was inside. She signed it from Avi and Pickle as well but I was right there and I saw that they had nothing to do with it.
Just before I left I practised giving Pickle some voice only commands in preparation for the dog show at Newtown Fair. He'll sit and lie and shake from a lying position, but only with his left paw. South paw.
