We bought our tickets to an Eagles tribute dinner dance, the third retro event of this type that we had attended in that year. Run by the City Beach Function Centre in Wollongong, we were invited to all of them by Lesley, one of the ladies in Out of the Blue Singers, the choir in which I sing. Along with about a dozen other members of the choir and their partners, we went to the first dinner dance to give it a go. It was a bit of a ‘why not ‘decision. The food was great, the wine free flowing and the music terrific to dance to.  So, that was enough reason to go to the second, which featured a band that played sixties music.  Again, it was heaps of fun.

Although much of my choir’s repertoire could be described as retro pop, I have an embarrassingly poor knowledge of pop music, and had barely heard of the Eagles let alone any of their songs.  In fact, on the afternoon before the show, I did a bit of googling and came upon and listened to Hotel California. Immediately, I realised that I knew some of the tune and just one line of the song – Welcome to Hotel California.  But in listening to the lyrics for the first time I was struck by the surreal and terrifying story that they tell – a man is seduced by ‘such a lovely place, such a lovely face’ but cannot escape from some brutal entrapping force that pervades the hotel in the desert:

‘Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
‘Relax’ said the night man,
‘We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!’

To be honest, we were uncertain about the merits of going to this third show. Steve was nursing an injured knee (running with one of daughters and our eldest grandson a few months before) and this was going to be a serious impediment to his enjoyment.

Neither of us is a confident dancer. My ability to move on the dance floor is about as good as my ability to master the choreography that occasionally accompanies our choral performances.  However, I don’t really care, I just love letting my hair down and moving in any way the music suggests to me.  And, in coming to these shows Steve’s strategy is to ply himself with enough alcohol to feel relaxed enough to just dance like a crazy. There are no half measures for him, so suggestions that he could take it easy in order to avoid further hurting his knee were met with near contempt.

Even if we sat out a few of the songs, when we did get up on the floor, we both did our thing, moving like idiots together, becoming 16 and 18 again and not caring that were really much older.

Probably because we sat out more than we had at the previous shows, I had the opportunity to take in more of what was happening around me.  The crowd was dominated by people in their fifties and sixties. Many in fashionable finery, others in jeans, a few wearing those ‘comfort’ shoes that are designed for oldies. One tall bloke discarded his shoes and was just wearing his socks.

Groups of women were dancing, dancing, dancing in sheer delight as if there was no tomorrow. Arms swinging, bodies twisting and turning, legs stepping, kicking, feet tapping irresistibly in time with the music. The sheer freedom and exhilaration of it all.  Sidestepping in chorus line unison or moving in and out of ever forming and reforming circles of friendship.

Then there were the couples. Many embraced, arm in arm, lost to the rest of the crowd. A few old guys with crook hips or knees and big bellies swaggered on to the floor, hips and knees rocking, feet barely shuffling but nevertheless transported by the music back to discos, pubs and Police Boys’ dances from 40 or 50 years ago. We were all teenagers feeling hip, groovy, hanging out with our lovers and friends.  Strutting, cooing, cuddling, arms romantically clutched around each other’s necks, staring into each other’s eyes.

We are avid theatregoers, we love seeing films and going to concerts, but neither of us has much appetite for going to the ballet or watching contemporary dance. I don’t think we really get it as an art form.  But probably for the first time in my life I realised how utterly enrapturing and magical dance can be as an expression of love and friendship. And by contrast with the seductive nightmarish qualities of the Hotel California, we could happily leave our sweet fantasy world when the music died.

November 2017

The Walkabout describes itself as an Aussie bar, restaurant & guesthouse.  It is one of a number of small bars in Jom Tien that are intended to cater to specific national groups.  On the opposite side of Soi 9, Rich Man Poor Man flies the American flag, while just around the corner on the waterfront strip are places catering for Dutch nationals, Swedes and Russians.

An oasis for Australian travellers, the Walkabout offers Australian grog and – in large red print – ‘Great Aussie Tucker’. One blackboard at the front of the building advertises ‘All Day big Breakfast – eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausages, tomatoes, baked beans, potatoe, toast, orange juice, tea or coffee’ for 150 baht. A second promises chicken with chips and sauce or mashed potatoes.  An Australian flag hangs in the back left hand corner, and half way along each wall there are two large flat screen televisions, showing Australia Network programs.  From the street, the Walkabout looks like a long, narrow shed – door-less yet dark.

The centrepiece of the place is a chest-high, u-shaped bar that runs from the street and extends for about three quarters of the length of the building.  The sides of the bar are covered with the grey corrugated iron that is common on the roofs of old Australian houses.  Spilling onto the street are bench tables and seats. But these are secondary places to sit – perhaps to eat as well as drink.   The main game is at the bar.

When somebody signals that the bridal party is coming, the groom and his best man set aside their stubbies – kept cool in familiar stubbie holders – and dismount from their stools.  They move to a narrow floor space that lies between the right side of the bar and the pool table, which is covered (for the occasion) in a richly patterned yellow Thai silk cloth.

The bride, resplendent in a shoulder-less, full length cream brocade and satin dress, carries a small posy of pink lilies and roses.  Arm in arm with her father, she carefully makes her way 150 metres along Soi 9 from the Executive Apartments to the Walkabout.  As she comes into view, her face is a study of concentrated effort to keep at bay the rising panic that is threatening to undermine her confidence.

Following the bride are two young women, one – obviously a bridesmaid – in a maroon satin dress, the other in a white blouse and black culottes, which extend to just below her knees.  The bride’s mother follows, wearing a soft green multi-layered frock.  And falling in behind is the groom’s daughter, a woman perhaps in her late twenties.  She is carrying a ten-month old boy, the child of the bride and the groom.

Motor bikes and cars weave around the little party, as it makes its way past trolleys selling mangoes, bananas, an array of fried sweets, brown feather dusters, and miscellaneous bric a brac.  The bride’s father kicks away a small plastic bag that clings to his shoe.

A pack of scrawny dogs wanders aimlessly along the soi. Closest to the Walkabout is a Dalmatian, its soft pinkish skin belying an edgy suggestion of aggressiveness.

Waiting in the Walkabout with the groom and his best man are about a dozen or so family and friends. Some of the guests are drinking mates of the groom, for whom the Walkabout is obviously a familiar haunt.  Others look less at ease.  All have travelled from Australia for the occasion.

The groom and his best man wear black trousers and shoes, and cream short sleeve shirts with Chinese collars (made locally for the wedding).  Each wears a corsage of a single pink rose surrounded by delicate leaves and bound together by a green strip.  Corsages are also distributed to guests and pinned to shirts and dresses by the bar staff. The corsages are the ingenious creation of the bride’s mother.  She has bought flowers from a local street vendor, gathered greenery from the garden surrounding the pool at the Executive Apartments, borrowed scissors from the Walkabout to cut a green plastic bag into strips and pierced the corsages with safety pins.

The celebrant – a Canadian minister from the local Baptist mission a couple of kilometres along the beachfront – makes his way to the appointed position.  After much anxious searching, the groom had secured his services only the day before.  Smiling gently at the guests and touching them lightly on arm or shoulder as he passes, he silently signals the joyous and sacred purpose of the occasion.  Almost without notice, two Thai government officials have also slipped into the bar and stand ready to register the marriage.

Passing the lingering Dalmatian, the bride and her father enter the Walkabout between two tall floral arrangements of pink and white lilies, chrysanthemums and daisies standing proud in front of long palm fronds and banana leaves, all draped in large pink satin ribbons. As the bride and her father make their way through the waiting crowd to the back of the bar, the bride’s delicate cream net veil comes into view.  So too does the singlet that her father wears beneath his white shirt: it bears the words ‘Beer Chang’.

Once they reach the celebrant, the bride’s father steps back.  The groom steps forward to stand beside the bride, his left arm, adorned with a dense blue tattoo, resting just below the bride’s right arm.  The mother of the bride is encouraged by others to take up a position towards the front of the crowd.  To the side of the couple, their baby, uncomfortable with the humid heat and the closeness of the crowd, is soothed by the groom’s daughter.  Cameras click.  The minister begins the ceremony, reminding us of the solemnity of the occasion.  His words command respect; all fall into an attentive silence. And then strong and certain and clear, the couple exchange their vows.

Following the signing of papers, the minister’s traditional declaration of the couple as husband and wife is met with cheers and applause.  Moments later a naming ceremony is held for the baby boy.  The bride’s godparents, her aunt and uncle, pin St Christopher medallions on the little boy and his godparents.  This is done quickly to minimise the little boy’s growing discomfort.

Within seconds, the minister departs as do the Thai Government officials, and the wedding party begins.  During the ceremony, a young pig has been roasting on a spit at the front of the bar.  It is now carved and placed on the pool table, along with bowls of potato salad, coleslaw and garden salad.  For much of the rest of the afternoon the guests move between the bar and the pool table, stocking up on pork and then quenching their thirst, mostly with beer.  The groom is back on a stool at the bar.  The bride finds her place among a group of friends at a table at the front of the bar. 

Various guests fuss over the baby in an attempt to cool him down.  One guest, a tall African American gently washes his face, and arms and legs.  Someone strips the baby of his wedding outfit.  Another guest fossicks through a baby bag for a bottle of water and gives him a drink.

There are no speeches, just a continuous flow of grog, food and conversation, punctuated by temporary departures to nearby hotel rooms to change into shorts, t shirts and thongs.  Eventually, even the bride decides that it is time to be released from the sweltering effects of her bridal frock.

The focus of attention in the bar shifts – an important football game is about the start.  Some of the guests reappear in Dockers sleeveless purple jerseys.  The TVs are turned back on, and once the game begins, the barracking is loud and robust, the volume only receding as it becomes obvious that Adelaide is pushing their beloved Freo Dockers out of a place in the next round of the finals.

The game ends.  The bride and her baby return to the apartment. One by one, the guests drift away – only a few friends remain at the bar with the groom.

September, 2012

I turn right off Springhill Road into Masters Road, when I notice a ute in front of me bearing a sticker. The only word that I can reliably make out is ‘Fat’ and I think that the next word is ‘chick’. Surely not, I think.  Curious I think. Is the driver a fat chick? Does the driver have some form of fetish for a ‘fat chick?

The vehicle momentarily speeds away but then takes the Figtree exit that I am headed for. The vehicle slows down to meet the 50 kilometres per hour speed limit and to negotiate the exit onto the Avenue. I am now able to get a better view of the sticker. It seems to read ‘Fat chick make me sick’. I follow him along the Avenue and our cars stop for the red light in front of Figtree Grove – formerly Westfield.  So I have another opportunity to read the sticker.   My first reaction is one of disgust at the cruelty of the message.  But this is also mixed with the thought that the sticker maker and sticker buyer are both a bit thick because the statement either contains a grammatical error or is a command. As it is written it is a command for a fat chick to make the owner sick. Then I surmise that this is a mistake and the intended meaning is that Fat chicks make the driver sick.  Another set of traffic lights at the intersection of the Avenue and the Princes Highway avails me a chance not only to confirm the statement but to gain a glimpse of the driver and his passenger before they turn left and disappear. He’s probably in his twenties as is his pony tailed female friend.

Then my mind goes to a different place. Firstly, I wonder about the thought processes and actions that led him to get the sticker. Did he search for and then buy it online after seeing a young fat woman that he found ugly? I assume the term ‘chick’ refers to a young woman. Did he come across the sticker in a shop, and on a whim, decide to buy it because it reflected his attitude about young fat women.  

A quick search online makes me realise that I am on the wrong track entirely. There is a whole series of ‘fat chicks’ stickers which it is cool to place on a car bumper. Amazon sells them as does an Australian motor head’s website, Street FX Motorsport, where stickers bearing the message ‘no fat chicks – car will scrape’ are promoted as the perfect addition to your car or as a laugh for your mates.

Then I wondered how the females in his life reacted to his purchase. Did his mum, or his sister or his girlfriend question his motives in placing it on the back window of his ute. Who is he talking to? Does he want other drivers to honk their sympathy or agreement? What about his dad or his brothers or his grandad?  What about the other people with whom he works. Does any of them think that there is something unkind and dehumanising about the sticker? I really hope so.

August, 2018

My first car accident occurred in 1976. A young teacher, I was driving home from Hampton High School in Western Australia in our first car, a Fiat 850 sports car, which we had bought just before we married in January 1973. When we exchanged our nuptials, Steve was 21 and had just completed his engineering degree at the University of Western Australia WA. I was still six months short of 20 and was two years into my Arts degree.

The Fiat was our pride and joy, and in keeping with the fashion, we had the white duco repainted bright yellow. We felt very sophisticated; very cool when we drove our little sports car to Denmark on the south coast of WA for our honeymoon. We also felt very adventurous in February 1974 when we packed all our clothes into it and drove across the Nullarbor to Sydney where Steve took up a scholarship to complete a one-year master’s program at the University of NSW.  

For West Australians, the trip across the Nullarbor to the Eastern States was legendary. I recall as a small child, ‘slide’ evenings in which friends far wealthier than us proudly showed images of them standing in the red dust on the side of the highway next to their Holden, with tarpaulin covered luggage sitting on the roof, and the vehicle covered in a thick layer of the gritty red stuff.  ‘This is us having a morning cuppa somewhere between Balladonia and Caiguna. The pot holes were amazing’.

Originally ‘built’ in 1941, the Eyre Highway was the only road connection between Western Australia and the Eastern States. A deeply rutted gravel and red sand track, it was only sealed in sections during the 1960s and 70s. When we made the journey in 1974, about 200 kms were still unsealed.  

The Fiat was the quintessential city car: tiny, close to the ground and definitely not designed to float over the deep corrugations. On the contrary, a long-standing joke between Steve and me is that I enjoyed the vibrations. Fortunately, our adventure was just about incident free. The exception occurred at a camp site in Eucla where we were assailed by the thundering sound and vibrations of two or three motor bikes that circled our two-person tent a few times as we lay in it. Probably just a lark intended to frighten us a bit, which it certainly did, but we survived without any material damage.

On that day home from Hampton High School in 1976, I was turning right onto a busy road and failed to give way to a car that was driving towards me. Neither the other driver nor I was injured, but his car was damaged, and ours was a write-off. That was the end of our beautiful little car, which we replaced with a Hillman – one of the more modern minx models, probably from the early 1960s, which we gave to my young brother some months later when we departed for a year of backpacking overseas.

I was very embarrassed by this accident, because I do not consider myself a reckless driver.  I was once stopped by a policeman who pointed out that I was driving too slowly.  Judgement or inattention has probably been my problem, and so I have responded to this by giving myself plenty of time to enter traffic.

It would be fair to say that I am a three-state offender. In 1984, our Mazda traveller van – a nine-seater – was sideswiped by another car as I attempted to veer from the right to the left lane on a busy roundabout in Hobart. The driver of the other car was an off-duty policeman, and while neither of us was injured, both our cars were very slightly damaged.  Apart from the opprobrium with which he took the opportunity to let me know that I was in the wrong, I also endured the embarrassment of Steve’s colleague Burt witnessing the accident from his desk in the Department of Transport office which overlooked the roundabout.   For many years later, we all laughed at the fact that it was impossible to get away with doing something wrong in Hobart. However, before I had had a chance to ring Steve – these were pre-mobile phone days – I contemplated the wisdom of having not shared with the policeman the fact that the occasion was accompanied by two possible mitigating factors. The first was that having only recently weaned our third child, this was the first day of my first period in five years. The second was that I was – quite uncharacteristically – listening to ABC FM classic and immensely enjoying Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.  Not ever since this experience have I listened to music on the radio while driving; I am too fearful that doing so will be an unsafe distraction.

Fast forward to Wollongong in 1996. I attempted to turn right out of a busy T junction and failed to see a car approaching from the right.  Hers, a brand new mid-blue sedan, the make of which I cannot remember was slightly damaged. Mine, a black Citroen Xantia, and perhaps a couple of years old was, perhaps appropriately, was so damaged that it was un driveable. Having exchanged contact details, I sat on the curb to wait for the tow truck to take my car to the panel beaters.

This was an extremely busy time of my life, in which managing three kids and a business had me driving long distances every week, and probably far too often trying to avoid running late. The accident earned me the final three of my twelve demerit points, and thus resulted in me making a trip to court and losing my licence for three months.

I don’t remember my defence, but I clearly remember the magistrate’s swift and merciless dismissal of it, when he said that any defence would be worthless if I killed myself or others on the road.  While I couldn’t argue with his rebuke, I later wondered whether his impatience was a result of the fact that his son was the sole survivor of a recent head-on collision that had killed his mates, and all the occupants of the other car. The accident occurred late at night on a quiet, narrow road. The vehicle in which the magistrate’s son was a passenger was travelling at high speed:  apparently the young guys were engaging in a bit of a youthful, but reckless lark.

Fortunately, apart from my guilt and my wounded pride about yet another failure of judgement, my accident was injury free.  But, the incident will always have a special place in my memory.  As I sat on the curb with my head in my hands and feeling like an idiot, I suddenly heard my eldest daughter calling me. Dressed in over-the-knees, blue, red and white pleated check uniform, black leather shoes and white socks and an untidy mess of gorgeous honey blonde hair, Dom swooped down and threw her arms around me. ‘Yes, I’m ok’, I said, as I sank into her comforting embrace. Seventeen and in year 11, Dom was among a group of kids being given a lift by another mum on their way back to school after an excursion to the conservatorium when she noticed me and my mangled car.

As a teenager Dom was romantically optimistic, feisty and probably even a bit reckless at times.  But, this was the first of two occasions on which she gave me a taste of the compassion and selflessness that I have loved about her ever since: the second was a year later just a few days before her HSC, when she drove me to hospital in the middle of the night. Apparently, on average, we can anticipate having 3-4 accidents in a lifetime of driving. That is according to an American calculation and I don’t imagine that the figure will be much different in Australia. So, lets hope that I stay at this point on the bell curve for the rest of my life. 

June 2019

A few days ago, a lumpy letter arrived in the mail. I say lumpy because I could feel something soft bulging inside the envelope, and not unusually the message on the front of the envelope let me know that there was a special gift inside for me. This was a promotional letter from a charity encouraging me to become a donor, the socks apparently intended as an inducement. I wonder how the charity’s marketing staff decided that this would work with me. Perhaps they thought that I would consider the gesture a kind one that makes me feel like reciprocating the kindness by making a one-off donation or even better becoming a regular donor.

Alternatively, a less sympathetic view is that the gift is designed to induce a sense of guilt and obligation in me: an ‘oh bugger, I suppose I had better donate’ feeling. 

Or does the marketing team think that a vague combination of these anticipated emotional responses will lead me to hesitate before I discard the accompanying letter and instead read it and perhaps then decide to become a donor?

But none of these scenarios was the case. Instead, I thought, oh, please not again, why is yet another charity wasting money by sending me stuff that I don’t need and don’t want? Furthermore, what do I do with it? Forewarned with the knowledge that the envelope contained an object that I don’t want, I was tempted to just throw it unopened straight into the rubbish bin. However, I am reluctant to do that because the envelope and letter should be thrown in the recycling bin and the plastic window of the envelope and the gift, complete with the plastic bag in which it was packed, need to go into the general waste. Aside from the nuisance of having to complete this tedious sorting and disposal process, which in turn forces me to see and handle the gift, I feel guilty and exasperated at wasting the socks and adding to land waste. So, the best I could do was to discard the envelope, its plastic window and the letter appropriately, and drop the socks into a charity bin at our local shopping centre. Ok, done!

No, here we go again. This time it was an A4 envelope, sans the clear window but with a picture of a cloth shopping bag and words saying ‘Can you help us with the heavy lifting? Your free gift inside…’

My strategy this time was to return the package to the sender. In the past I have done this and placed the package inside another envelope which also contained a letter describing my concerns. Returning the package doesn’t really solve the problem but it does let the charity know that the strategy didn’t work with at least one person.

Let me be clear. I do not resent charities reaching out to me for donations. As it happens, I am a regular donor to a number of charities and give one-off donations to others each year. In doing so, my decisions are based on local and international causes that I think warrant support and that I care about the most.

I just wish that charities would stop using this dubious method to promote their causes and to encourage me to become a donor or to increase my commitment to them. For me at least, the strategy is counterproductive.

May 2026

We arrived at the Riverside Café and found a seat on the wide wooden floored verandah overlooking the Hunter River. To our right was a man seated alone, seemingly self-absorbed as he ate his bacon and eggs and scrolled his mobile phone. To our left were the only other people in the café – a group of about five blokes all in their 60s or older. Given their relaxed demeanour and that this was a Thursday morning, I reckon they were all more or less retired. Dressed in a motley array of T shirts, shorts and runners – the sort of attire that’s fine for hanging around the house in or working in the garden, my guess is that their visit to the café had been preceded by a walk, probably along the riverside path that stretched in front of the café and partly hidden by low scrubby gum trees. 

With our bikes loaded onto the back of our car we had left Wollongong the previous afternoon to travel to Brisbane. After attending a play – a Christmas gift from our three girls – at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre in the early evening, we drove to Raymond Terrace where we stayed the night at a little motel: a red brick box-like structure that was simple but clean and quiet – perfect for our need for a good night’s sleep.  

Keen to reach Brisbane in daylight, we were up bright and early the next morning, but our first port of call was somewhere to grab breakfast. Google search suggested Riverside Café as the nearest place on offer, and it had the advantage of being an easy place to park our car.

The blokes’ friendly relaxed banter, interspersed with occasional outbursts of laughter suggested a sense of familiarity with each other and the cafe: this was where they meet after their walk. Every now and again one or other them would call out a G’day, ‘How ya goin mate?’ or a friendly message of encouragement to a passing walker or jogger.

One of the joggers was a woman – I think the blokes called her Sue – very likely also in her 60s. Wearing a long, sleeveless white T shirt, black three-quarter length tights and old joggers, Sue shuffled past the café in a heavy sideways gait that suggested protection of wonky hips or knees.

Having cleaned up our scrambled eggs and skinny flat whites we returned to our car parked across the road from the café and next to the riverside path. Steve and I were checking that the bikes were securely locked onto the carrier at the back of the car when we suddenly heard Sue.

‘Going on a cycling trip, are ya?’ she asked as she stopped just beyond the car.

‘Yes’, I said, ‘we are headed for a three-dayer – the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail’.

‘Good on ya’, she replied her face spreading into a bright toothy smile. After a moment’s hesitancy, I added, ‘Actually, it’s our first post cancer cycling trip since my diagnosis two years ago. trip, so it’s sort of special.’

‘Oh’, she said, ‘that’s awesome’, and held my gaze for just a second before throwing her big bare, sweaty arms and drenched T shirt around me in a huge body warming hug. As we embraced, I felt utterly loved. ‘Thanks so much,’ I said. ‘Enjoy the rest of your run’.  

March 2026.

I stepped out of St James Station onto Elizabeth Street to face a police barricade blocking off the street from just beyond the station down as far as I could see east of the station.  My first thought as I wandered across the street was that a Christmas parade was about to take place. So, along with a few others, I found my way to the edge of the pavement and glanced into the distance, wondering where all the action was.  Less than 30 seconds later, bored with the absence of anything apparent on the empty street, I decided to get on with my Christmas shopping.

Pulling out the scribbled list of items that I intended looking for, I checked the time.  It was 10.45am. This meant that I would have about four hours before I would need to make my way back to the airport to meet Steve’s flight. He had flown down to Melbourne early in the morning for a meeting with a client and, unusually, I had decided to accompany him the night before on the trip from Wollongong to Sydney, or more precisely to a hotel across the road from Sydney Domestic Airport. He was particularly tired because he had been working long hours on a number of large projects and I was worried about him driving to Sydney alone.

It was also extremely unusual for me to shop in Sydney as an intended, planned action.  Shopping for anything other than food, tends to occur for me almost accidentally or at least incidentally, and Sydney has been the location of this activity perhaps three or maybe four times in the last 28 years that we have lived in Wollongong.

David Jones was the first shop that I visited.  Within a few seconds of having made my way to the Clinique counter to purchase cosmetics for my youngest daughter Tessa, the sweet sales assistant, perhaps in her early sixties, and all bonhomie, reached for two jars of moisturising creams, and midway through a comment about the benefits of Youth Dew for a young complexion, dropped her voice to a barely audible level and asked me whether I knew about the ‘hostage situation’.

‘No’, I said in surprise.

‘A Muslim is holding a group of people hostage at the Lindt Café in Martin Place’, the word Muslim expressing a you-know-what-I-mean sense of terrorist.

‘Oh’, I replied with a mixture of shock and surprise, ‘that must be why the police are manning a barricade across Elizabeth Street’.

‘Yes’, she said, ‘you need to be careful. That’s a lovely pendent you are wearing.’

‘Yes’, I said, ‘it’s a gift from my choir friends in the ‘Gong’. And on our conversation went until she wished me merry Christmas, and having given me instructions for getting to the nearest Sussan shop, encouraged me to be careful. Why, I wondered for a fleeting moment, before remembering that there was a hostage situation just a couple of streets away.

A few minutes later I found my way to the Pitt Street mall, stopping for a few seconds to take a photo of an enormous Father Xmas display made out of Lego. The photo I thought would make a good conversation piece with my four grandchildren who would be spending a few days with us over Christmas. ‘Wow, Lulu that’s huge.  Is it really all made out of Lego? I reckon I could do that if we had enough pieces’, were some of the comments I imagined them making when I showed them the photo. I walked around the Lego display to take in whatever else was happening.

To one side a strange agglomeration of dogs sitting in a cart was attracting a fair bit of attention. They were there to raise awareness and money for Assisting Wellbeing Ability Recovery Empowerment (AWARE) Dogs. A metre or so away from them on another corner of the giant Father Christmas was an old man playing a Christmas carol on a violin, his tune struggling to compete with the piped music – another vaguely familiar Christmas tune – that pervaded the air, and frustrated me because I could not locate where it was coming from.

Glancing to the right I realised with a touch of surprise that King Street was closed, and I noticed a number of police officers purposefully striding along and across Pitt Street. And, all the time, I could sense the growing unease among other shoppers: the comments about the hostages.

‘Have you heard any more news?’

‘No, nothing more; just that there are 40 hostages. One has been forced to hold up a flag with Arabic script on it; others are standing with their hands up against the front window of the café. Well, I think he’s from ISIS.’

My thoughts returned to Christmas shopping. I checked my watch: it was 12.30. Yes, there was enough time before Steve’s return to Sydney airport to pick up some books from Abbeys in York St. Books are a standard favourite Christmas – and birthday – present for him, and I wanted to also get a few for the grand kids. Half an hour later I emerged onto York St. The load of Christmas presents in my little backpack had now been made considerably heavier by a couple of novels, and a couple of non-fiction books for Steve and a pile of young readers’ books and colourfully illustrated story books for our grandchildren.

Then it suddenly dawned on me. What if the trains are cancelled? Shit, how would I get back to the airport? What if the roads are closed and I can’t get a taxi? Picking up my pace, I made my way to the Queen Victoria building, navigated a path through the crowds of people shopping, drinking coffee, and eating lunch and headed down the stairs to the Town Hall Station.  Ok, which train will get me to the airport? Should I just jump on any train and get to Central or find out which one goes directly to the airport? Pulling my phone out of my shoulder bag, I quickly searched for the city timetable, completed the Plan Your Trip details, and with 2 minutes to spare, tapped on and walked as briskly as I could down the stairs to Platform 2, conscious all the time of avoiding a fall.

Stepping onto the train, it was surprisingly easy to find a seat. I gazed around only to be met by a silent sea of down-turned heads, most of them nonchalantly focused on mobile phone screens, some reading the newspaper, a few quietly dozing. Twenty-two minutes later I made my way up the escalator to the arrivals area at Sydney airport. Just as I downed the last mouthful of a coffee, Steve appeared. ‘Have you seen the news?’ he asked.

‘Yes’, I nodded. ‘Isn’t it awful’ I added, not sure what else to say.

‘I’ve been worried about you. I am so glad to see you. Let’s go home.’