Tag: Sydney

Missing the Date, Catching the Moment

My mind is scattered. The other day, I drove to Sydney for an appointment on the wrong day. That’s a six hour round trip I could have avoided. I have a bad habit of skimming emails and assuming details. It has got me into trouble before. But I decided against self-flagellation and make the most of a day in the city.

Although there were many options to get into town, I chose to take the light rail from Dulwich Hill. Not the quickest way but I wanted to see what it was like. Having grown up with trams in Melbourne, I have always had a soft spot for them. I much prefer them to trains and buses. I like that I can see the driver, that they are smaller and more intimate than trains, and travel at a slower speed. There’s a human scale to them, almost a little quaint now, yet efficient at moving people from one suburb to the next.

The track goes along a narrow goods train corridor which hasn’t been used for years. For most of the journey, there’s vegetation on both sides of the track, making it a pleasant ride through a green corridor. On this particular day, the leaves of the trees we were dappled in sunlight, giving the effect of passing through an arbour. I was captivated by the changing light and shadow on the various shades of green. Yet when I looked at my fellow passengers, hardly anyone noticed. Familiarity breeds contempt.

As I began to observe the commuters, I noticed two women reading a book, maybe three people sitting quietly and the rest were either scrolling on their phones or wearing earbuds. In the past, commuters may have been reading a newspaper or book, knitting or striking up a conversation with someone nearby. People would have made eye contact with each other or even given a slight nod. I remembered a TV show aired on SBS called ‘Going Home’. We used to watch it regularly after the news. Filmed in 2000-2001, it followed the lives of a fictional group of commuters on their homeward train journey. The characters shared aspects of their lives with one another, noticed if someone was missing and discussed current affairs. This series could not be made now. Who would watch a group of commuters staring at their phones for 20 minutes a day?

Once more, I focused my gaze outwards as we passed Jubilee Park, Wentworth Park and then made our way into the city. It had been a pleasant trip, musing about the nature of change and the joys of travelling along a green corridor. Did it matter that I arrived on the wrong day? Not really. I spent the day doing a bit of shopping and surprised a dear friend, turning up unannounced. A perfect, unscripted day.

Weather Whiplash

I must have blinked and missed it. A week ago, night-time temperatures were in the single digits but today spring has arrived and daytime temps are in the twenties. Trees that seemed dormant a few days back are suddenly blooming. Not just one or two trees, but rows of trees along streets that appeared bare the last time I looked.

Officially, spring is at least another week away, yet Sydney basked in 27 degrees today. This past year has been the second warmest on record, but fortunately rainfall has been average, at the very least in the Eastern states. Luckily, because bushfire season is starting earlier each year and dry vegetation acts like kindling.

For the 16 years that we lived in the Blue Mountains, every spring brought with it that heart-in mouth feeling as fire trucks raced by. My daughter developed a keen sense of bushfires. She can smell one miles away. This is the inadvertent training young children get who live in fire prone areas. We saw the destruction around us with alarming regularity and knew several people who lost their homes. I never knew the full extent of the effect it had on me until I left.

Unfortunately, it is expected that we will have to endure more heatwaves, extreme conditions in summer and increasingly hazardous weather conditions earlier than ever before and not just in Australia. We will all have to learn mitigation tactics and put an end to being complacent about our impact on the planet. It is high time we stop talking about the weather and work together to actively improve the climate.