Moving to Sydney: A year on

It might be hard to believe it but it has been just on a year since I relocated to Sydney. So how are things going? I have settled into the apartment comfortably, especially after my flatmate - who moved in a few days after the relocation - moved out in June. I have had my son stay in the spare bedroom for three weeks, and another guest - my mum's old housekeeper, G - stay for a week when she came down to see mum for mum's birthday last year. But the place has become most definitely my home, a refuge to resort to, a place where I can safely rest, and a place where I can get on with the things that matter.

I'm still getting mail addressed to the previous tenants - the people who lived in the apartment before mum and I moved to Sydney from southeast Queensland - and when I get them I always put a note on them and place them in a postbox so they can be sent back to the sender. I am a stickler for form in this area because it's the sort of thing I would like someone else to do for me if I were to move out to another place. There is a postbox just up the street on one of the street corners, so it's not really a difficult thing to do. You just have to make up your mind that that's what you're going to do.

When I order wine from the company that supplied our wine back in southeast Queensland they usually get it delivered without too much difficulty. In some cases I will be home when the courier buzzes on the intercom. In other cases they will leave the boxes inside the foyer and phone me to tell me they have dropped them off. This can happen when they have another delivery to the same building that goes smoothly. If all else fails they can leave the boxes of wine at the local convenience store and drop a note in my mailbox. The convenience store doesn't get any remuneration for this service, it's just something they do as a service for their customers.

And when I order coffee - if getting to the store in Newtown is not possible - Australia Post usually just leaves the package inside the front door. If that cannot be done they take it back to the local Australia Post franchise in Pyrmont and I get a note to pick it up from there.

For medical things I have my dermatologist in Macquarie Street where I visit a couple of times a week. The GP is in an office just up the street near the light rail stop. And the dentist is just around the corner on the main road. I do my grocery shopping at a major outlet down the street past the casino, where there is also a handy pharmacist I can use. If I need something like vitamins I can phone them and they will order it in for me.

Getting onto the motorway for days when I go up to the nursing home to see mum is no problem. Getting off when coming back home can be a bit slow depending on the day. Weekends around lunchtime are the worst time, and at those times the roads around here can be really congested. Everybody loves to go to the Fish Market on the weekend. Usually though I will scoot up and down the motorway to the nursing home with no difficulties, and so I see mum every two or three days as I intended to do when I moved down here from the Coast.

Elections seem to follow me I will say, in closing here. When I moved down it was the #libspill at federal level as Tony Abbott almost lost the party leadership (and government leadership) back in February 2015. Then there was the Queensland win for Labor at around the same time. Now when I am down here in February it is the US party primaries with Donald Trump looking strong at each step in the process as the US electorate selects their presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton is also doing well but she doesn't seem to have the same cachet of her likely presidential rival.