August in Sydney

Artarmon was a leafy inner suburb with narrow streets lined with Federation era houses in various stages of renovation.  Our house was a rental and as such lacked a little in the maintenance and upkeep departments. Wind leaked in around the doors and whistled through the ventilation openings near the ceiling.  Our pet owners left a huge basket of blankets in the corner of the lounge and in these we swaddled ourselves every evening in an attempt to ward off the winter chill.

One morning I walked from Bondi to Coogee beaches, along the top of the cliffs and past a comfortable plethora of coffee shops and cafes.  The paths were busy with tourists and locals, all out enjoying the sunshine while a few hardy souls declared winter over and jumped into the ocean pools for a few brisk laps.  

Better than nothing, I suppose.

Shark bait.

The modern face of surf lifesaving.

We were in Sydney to visit the grand baby, and in Artarmon to care for Bertie, which translated to two walks a day and sharing a couch with a dog who vastly underestimated his own size.  Bertie begged us to play ball, but adhered to complicated rules which only made sense inside his little doggie brain.  He perceived greyhounds and small fluffy dogs as world-ending threats and spent his mornings out on the back verandah yelling at the joggers who passed on the path beside the creek at the bottom of the back yard.  When the grand baby came to visit Bertie had paroxysms of jealousy and took to swearing, thereby relegating himself to lonely afternoons as everyone went off to visit the grand baby somewhere where Bertie wasn't.

Bertie is the one on the right.

August flew by.  Winter crept imperceptibly toward spring, and flowers began to blossom in the nature strip and the remnant bushland along the railway line. Bertie's people hopped on a plane in Heathrow and started their long journey home.

Morning dew.

We had a final flurry of cleaning and washing and mopping and then we said our last goodbyes to Bertie and left him watching us forlornly through the window.  

Don't worry. Your people will be back soon.

Out at the Lane Cove caravan park the car threw a hissy fit outside reception and refused to start.  Along came Craig from the NRMA, expecting a flat battery and getting instead an intriguing electronic problem.  Craig was quite excited and went off on all sorts of tangents as he attempted diagnosis before conceding that what we really needed was an auto-electrician.  He shorted the starter moter to get us going and I parked the car beside our cabin and gave it a jolly good talking-to about getting its act together overnight.

Then I went to my good friend Google to look for auto-electricians who could visit me at the Lane Cove CP.  But it was way too late at night for that kind of thinking, so I went to bed instead.

Bonus: winner of the Shiniest Caterpillar award.

Yes, the grand baby exists.