Up the Cross

This morning I went out early at around 10.30am and stopped at the dry cleaner's to drop off a knitted throw rug that mum made and that she used to use but which has just been sitting on the floor in my apartment since I brought it home with the other things from the nursing home. After getting my docket I headed down to Darling Harbour and went up the stairs to the walkway that goes to Bathurst Street.

On Castlereagh Street I stopped in at a branch of my bank and asked about whether there was a branch with an automatic change counting machine in the vicinity as I had a lot of silver coins at home I wanted to convert into cash and deposit into my bank account. The tellers told me that I could go to the Haymarket branch to do this.

After leaving the bank I headed across Hyde Park and up Oxford Street, turning left at the courthouse to go down Darlinghurst Road in the direction of Kings Cross. When I arrived at my destination I carried on down the street in search of a place to have lunch. I went into Macleay Street and headed along to Potts Point, looking in at all the eateries I saw, but there was nothing suitable. There were low-cost places and high-end places but nothing in-between. When I got down to Challis Avenue I crossed Macleay Street at the lights and headed back in the direction I had come from.

I passed William Street crossing at the lights and headed back into Darlinghurst on Victoria Street. Not far down the road I stopped to look at a printed menu that was sitting on a table on the footpath and saw some things I felt like eating, so I went into the restaurant, which was called Bloody Mary's. I used the toilet before sitting down then ordered a Caesar salad with chicken and a Coors beer. After eating I paid and left, heading back toward Oxford Street.

Outside the hospital there were people smoking cigarettes on the footpath. One man had a green fluoro beanie on his head. When I got to the intersection I crossed both streets and headed back to Taylors Square, then turned left at the Courthouse Hotel and then right into Campbell Street. I passed the Pup N Pussy pet shop (see photo) and then turned left into Crown Street. When I got to Foveaux Street I turned right down the hill. As I crossed a side street a man in a white car honked his horn at me as he drew up close to the intersection. I headed down to Central Station and into Eddy Avenue under the train tracks.

A man pushing a shopping trolley that he was leaning on with his whole body followed me down the pavement under the colonnade talking non-stop but I didn't understand what he was saying and thought him deranged. I crossed Pitt Street and passed by a kebab shop called Five Star, which made me remember that the kebab shops in Kings Cross and at Taylors Square had the same name although the signage and wall menus in each were of different designs. I crossed George Street and saw a man in a dark suit wearing black and white two-tone shoes walking up the street.

I turned into Ultimo Road and stopped at the branch of my bank on the corner of Thomas Street. A man came up to me and asked what I needed. I told him I wanted at some point to use the change counting machine and he passed me to a female staffer who was also there. She explained how the machine worked. I left the store and headed up Dixon Street, crossing the foot bridge at Liverpool Street into Darling Harbour. A woman sitting on a low wall had a label around her neck that read "Happiness and its causes". Further up past the motorway a man came up to me and pointed to a group of about ten young people. He said they were the Year 12 geography class and asked if I would take his picture with them. I asked him how to use the phone he held and he showed me where to press. I took the picture and handed the phone back to him then headed up to Pyrmont.

In Union Square the beggar who had asked me for change when I had started out on my walk was still sitting under his tree. I gave him the coins that I had in my pocket and went home. I had been gone for almost four hours.