Hello Peeps, well I had a Covid escape to Sydney from Blackheath last week. Cities are very strange places, did you know that? You could disappear from one completely in the proverbial puff of smoke, or something even more peculiar! Well I was watching a man with
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Hello. Did you know that Australia’s dear little koala had a very bad time during the bush fires earlier this year? Well they can’t run very fast, so that was a problem. I was in Sydney the other day and people were protesting about it all. I
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Daydreaming in our pandemic iso-world is a national pastime. Here is an imagined dinner, hosted by myself and my partner Rob in our new house at Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. There are four courses (well sort of), and four dinner guests from
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I was intrigued to come across a reference to one of my articles on the internet recently. It was included in the description of a rare and beautiful item offered for sale by Hordern House Rare books, located in Sydney’s Surry Hills. This tiny object was of
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Hello, Desmond Conolly here. I’m off to old Sydney town at last! Yay, lock-down has been such a challenge! Mind you, right from the start I knew the trip would be difficult for someone with an independent spirit comme moi. And wow, was I right! At Medlow
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Hello Peeps My elderly guardians Pauline, and Dr Bob went on a little ‘rest and recuperation trip’ to Sydney this week, after the bushfires in our village of Blackheath. I believe it’s called a ‘sojourn’. I wasn’t allowed to stay home alone due to a previous incident,
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Remember the old Gowings Department store in Sydney? And their catchphrase, ‘GONE TO GOWINGS’ ? It was the place to go for rural chaps in town for the Easter Show. Sadly, the store closed a good while back, much to my disappointment. I loved the eccentricity of
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To mangle the words of Oscar Wilde, for an institution to lose a miniature portrait would be unfortunate, to lose a life-sized framed oil painting sounds more like carelessness. Catherine Hayes (1818-1861) was a celebrated, Irish born soprana who toured Australia extensively in the mid 1850s. At
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Recently I paused and looked skyward at this wonderful Sydney building. At street level it’s hard to appreciate its full, 300ft glory, sheathed in glazed cream, terra-cotta tiling. Somehow it reminds me of the toy blocks I played with during my 1950s childhood. However, it was built
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Around Christmas 1950, twin white cats were spotted atop the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There they remained. It seemed the pair had decided it was the best location in the city, with world class views. Well really, who could blame them? The snowy residents
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