Sushi for lunch

This morning I woke up to a phone call from a business associate who wanted to update my details, and after I hung up I got out of bed and made some coffee. It had rained during the night so it was a little dark this morning when I came out to the living room. The air was still cool and crisp, unlike in midsummer when it streams in through the windows like a blast of pure radiation (which of course it is at those times). I sat down at the computer and turned it on and checked the emails.

There was another email from the Japanese lawyer asking for more notarised documents relating to the Japan property purchase, so I made a call to the notary public in the CBD and made an appointment to go in to pick up the document he was preparing. Then I went back to bed for a nap and set the alarm. I got up about 45 minutes later and headed out over the Pyrmont Bridge. It was hot again and I started to sweat. I arrived at the notary public's office in George Street and went up in the creaky old elevator. I signed the form he showed me and paid for the document then headed back to Pyrmont.

Back at Harris Street I went into one of the Japanese restaurants and ordered a beer, and sat down at the sushi train to have some lunch. When I had eaten five plates of sushi I paid with my debit card and left, heading home. At home I went back to bed for a nap and had a sleep. I woke up some time later and had some cold coffee with milk, then opened a bottle of wine. I turned on the TV and listened to the news while attending to social media.

Sunday dinner at the pub

I got up this morning and spoke to the girl - who had come over last night and stayed after a dinner engagement - and then went back to bed, getting up late. We had some breakfast - including onion soup for me because I had a slight cold, as well as special tasty carrots from the supermarket, and a scrambled egg with carrot and tomato - and then I washed the dishes. I also dried out some clothes the girl needed for the day.

When we were ready I drove her home and came back in the car listening to a program about homelessness in the Shoalhaven. When I got home I went straight up the street to the Vietnamese restaurant and had a bowl of pho, then came back home and started straight away on a poem about homelessness. I put on the washing and went to bed and had a nap, then got up later and opened some wine. I finished the poem with some revisions and then went up to the pub to get some food. At the pub I bought a beer and took out some money from the ATM then sat down at the table and had the pasta I had ordered. I ate it one-handed while scrolling through my Facebook feed, then got up from the table and returned home.

I wrote another poems, this one titled 'Dinner at the pub' and turned the TV on. I put half the washing into the tumble dryer and sat down to edit the poems I had written during the day. When I was happy with them, I published them again on Facebook. I put the other half of the washing into the tumble dryer. I made a tweet.

A quiet night at home

The girl stayed over last night so I got up early and drove her home in the car, so that she could get to some meetings on time. I came home in the rush-hours traffic unscathed and parked the car under the building. When I got inside I went back to bed and slept until late, then got up and put on the washing - the sheets on this occasion - and ironed the shirts.

Later I went back to bed for a nap and then the girl called me from the city and I got up and walked into town. We went to McDonald's first for a drink, then to the cheap noodle restaurant on Bathurst Street to have some food. The noodles with chicken were delicious but too long, making it hard to serve them up in the small dishes we had for the purpose. The dumplings were reliably good and I had mine with chilli and vinegar. Then I said goodbye to the girl and walked home.

At home I opened some wine and had a drink and put half of the laundry in the tumble dryer. I went to the computer and focused on social media, which was something I hadn't done for a few days. Later, I washed the dishes and put the second load of laundry on to dry. When all the laundry was dry I put the dry sheets in the bedroom and went back to social media. It didn't rain this evening, as I had somehow hoped it would, but I had a good evening nonetheless. The wine got a bit acid later but I opened a new bottle and kept drinking. It was a quiet night, a good night.

A trip to the city

This morning I got up late and made some coffee, then checked the emails. There was one from my Japanese lawyer about the property purchase in Japan, and it described documents I had to secure to enable the purchase to go ahead. These included notarised certificates for the power of attorney for my ex-wife, as well as notarised identification documents needed to establish that I am an Australian resident.

I telephoned the public notary in the city whose details appeared in my lawyer's email and made an appointment to go to see him to get the certificates described. Then I finished off what I was doing and headed outside. I went down Harris Street to Union Square then headed out over the Pyrmont Bridge to the CBD. The notary's office is in the Dymocks building, and I headed there and got into the rather rickety lift. In the notary's office I got a phone call from my ISP, and I asked them to call me back tomorrow. I went into the notary's office and showed him the originals of the documents I had emailed in the morning. He signed the certificates and handed them to me, then I paid. He made some smalltalk. I left the office and headed back to Pyrmont.

I went to the Japanese restaurant and ordered some ramen and had some sushi and a beer. Then I paid and went to my psychiatrist's office and we talked about my weight problem. He had some suggestions. I concurred with his advice. After the appointment I went back home and had some wine and used social media for a couple of hours until I felt sleepy. Then I had a nap until the girl called me and told me she was on her way to her dance class. I got up and went back to social media - relieved to have something interesting to do; we had had a blackout the night before and I had been cut off from my usual retreats - and then the girl called me again and said she had lost her Opal card and was in Ashfield instead of Newtown - where the dance studio is. I told her she was a fuzzlebuggy and she asked me what that was and I said she wasn't very organised.

A guest to lunch

I got up late and had a cup of coffee then went to the pharmacy to order some drugs - I always have to order these ones, which is a pest but they are necessary - then I went up to Union Square to wait for my lunch guest. I had met Taka when he was small and he had come to Australia to play soccer from Japan, so I had decided to do his mother a favour and help him by having lunch with him. He had only been in the country for two weeks. I had organised to meet him at Union Square, at the corner of Miller Street, but he ended up on another Miller Street, and I told him to get in a cab to get to the Pyrmont Miller Street.

He eventually arrived and we walked down to the Fish Market, which was full to the gills on a busy Sunday. We bought some fish and went back to my place. I had a glass of wine and gave Taka a glass of water to drink. We talked through lunch about his situation playing soccer in Australia, and why Australian players don't normally go to Japan to play. Apparently the trend for Japanese players to come to Australia is a recent one, and Taka told me he is making most of his money working in a Japanese restaurant, with that income supplemented by playing soccer in a secondary league - not the A-League.

After lunch we went for a walk around the headland and back to my place, then I said goodbye and Taka headed off - to play soccer this afternoon in a field near the Harbour Bridge, apparently - and I went to bed and had a nap. Later I got up and put on the washing, and talked to my ex-wife - who is a friend of Taka's mother - on Messenger, about Taka. We decided that he was living a dream, which is something that is beautiful and belongs to young people.

I sat down to enjoy the evening storm. It decided to rain today after dark, although I'm not sure how it affected Taka and his soccer buddies. We can only hope that they had already sought out shelter by the time the rain came on.

Buying a costume

I got up quite late this morning and saw a message from the girl - we had organised to go out this morning - and I had some coffee and left the apartment to go to her house in the car. When I got there I found a parking spot and went upstairs. She was ready to go and soon we were on our way up the Princes Highway then onto Euston Road, where we quickly parked. We walked up to an eatery named Grandma's and ordered some lunch - I had some chicken stew and a flat white and the girl had a baguette and some apple juice - which we ate soon enough and paid for before walking to the costume shop on the corner.

She looked through some genie costumes that the sales clerk pointed out. The bags of costumes in the store are all sealed and you cannot open them; you have to rely on the picture on the packet and what you can see through the plastic bag they come in. She eventually settled on a purple genie's costume - we are going to see Aladdin on Wednesday, and she wanted to wear something appropriate - and a hat in the style they wear in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

She wore the hat all day. After we got back to my place we hap a lie down then got up and went into town to buy some shorts for me. I haven't worn any shorts during the summer and she thought I should have some. I eventually found two pairs in suitable sizes, but sizes vary so much you cannot just rely on asking for a "size 40, thanks". You're likely to get something two sizes too small. I also bought a belt. After I had paid for the items I found that the alarm went off at the exit, so I had to take them back to get reneutered at the checkout. Then we went upstairs to level 6 where Myer has something called 'Wonderland', a shopping floor for children. It includes an interactive display that captures an image of the person taking part, where you can hit snowflakes and airships and that sort of thing.

We walked back home across the Pyrmont Bridge and went to Coles to buy some groceries. We bought some seafood, figs, tofu, coriander, carrot and snow peas. At home I went to the bedroom to have a short nap while the girl did things with her phone on the couch. When I got up I came out and she started to cook. She cooked snow peas, pasta with carrot, and a seafood soup with tofu, as well as the rest of the dumplings from a few weeks before. After dinner I drove her home because she was feeling tired, and we stopped off at Woollies to do some shopping for her, before driving to her place, where I dropped her off and headed home up Marsh Street and O'Riordan Street. Once home I did the dishes then sat down in front of social media and turned on the TV.

Heavy rain in the afternoon

This morning I got up fairly early because the intercom buzzed when the postie came to deliver my coffee, but I didn't make it to the intercom on time to let him in. I went back to bed and slept for another hour or so, then got up to make some coffee. After drinking a cup I went back to bed and then got up later to iron the shirts. While I was ironing them the girl called for a chat.

I went out to have some lunch at a Japanese restaurant and then after lunch went to the post office to pick up the coffee.

When I got home I went back to bed for a nap and slept for a couple of hours but there were too many messages coming through from the girl and other people, so I didn't sleep much. When I got up I had some wine and sat down at the computer. I bought a ticket to Aladdin for the girl and me to celebrate her birthday, and then an email came through about the property purchase in Japan, which I attended to.

In the mail in the morning there had been the letter which I had sent to my ex-wife's friend's son. He had moved to Sydney to play soccer and she was worried about him and he was living in my suburb so I said I would contact him. Unfortunately, they gave me the wrong address so the letter came back to sender. I confirmed the address with my ex-wife later, and it turned out to have been wrong. The young man contacted me on Facebook and so I can use Messenger to talk with him from now on.

It rained heavily later in the afternoon and I started to write a poem but it didn't feel right, with the alcohol and everything, so I deleted the two lines I had written and closed the file. At least we have seen the last of the worst of the summer heat for this year. It's pretty certain that we'll have nothing to equal what we had last weekend again,at least this year. Which is a blessing. I feel immensely grateful that we have seen the worst of the heat over for the immediate future. What next year will bring, is still to be seen.

Noodles in Marrickville

This morning I got up early to let in the cleaners but they sent me a message saying they would be late due to traffic on Parramatta Road. I went back to bed to wait for them and eventually their buzz arrived and I let them into the building. They started doing their thing and I lay down on the couch to wait, with the TV on. When they had finished I paid and went back to bed and had a sleep for a few hours. Then after I got up and had some more coffee, I went back to bed again.

At about 3.30pm I got up because I had an appointment at an open house in the afternoon, and I left home at around 4pm in the car. It only took me about 30 minutes to arrive at the location, and I walked down the street, nursing my sore ankle from the day before. I got some way down the street - to the station - before turning back and going into a Vietnamese restaurant and having a bowl of chicken and bamboo shoots noodles.

When I had finished I went back and waited in my car for about 15 minutes then went to the open house and looked around. It is an interesting place where the owner has done a lot of work on the place - including a koi pool, partridge aviary, ducted cooling, centralised hifi, second-level bedroom up some seriously steep stairs - and there's a garage out the back big enough to be a granny flat.

I met my friend there and we looked around then he needed to go to Woollies, so we walked down the street talking and did some shopping, then walked back to my car. I drove him home then headed back to my place down Paramatta Road and Pyrmont Bridge Road. When I got back the girl called me, she had been at a talk in Surry Hills and wanted to go to a Thai restaurant to have some dinner before going home. She called me again later, after she had got off the train, to complain about a rude woman on the train who had complained about her coughing. I went back to social media to do some more sharing online before going to bed.

Dinner at home

I got up earlyish today and made some coffee then tried to order coffee online from Campos Coffee. Their store in Newtown usually supplies my coffee needs but I wasn't sure about the weather, which in recent times has been a bit erratic, so I didn't want to count on a long walk to get coffee. The website has been upgraded and I discovered that my login details didn't work, so I called Campos's NSW office but the call was ignored. I sent a message using the online form but that didn't get any attention either. So I took the initiative in the afternoon and decided to change my password, which I hadn't wanted to do in the first instance. This step worked, and I was able to clear my shopping basket and order the coffee I need in the mornings.

The girl called me after I had called Campos and wanted to know if I wanted to go to lunch in the city, and I agreed. So I put on my shoes and headed out into Darling Harbour and up Bathurst Street to the restaurant. She hadn't arrived so I asked for a table for two and sat down, and ordered a beer. I was seated next to a elderly couple, and I watched them out of the corner of my eye while I was on Facebook on the mobile. The man was seated opposite me at an angle and he had a long-sleeve shirt on and was drinking a Sapporo out of a glass - my beer came with no glass and they didn't ask me if I wanted one, so I decided to drink out of the bottle - and he was examining the beer offerings on the touch-panel menu they have in the restaurant. It's the kind of menu where you order the food and drinks electronically, and it's remarkably easy to use.

When the girl arrived I ordered another beer, and she ordered some water. We both went for the hokke 'te shoku ryouri'; hokke is a type of fish they regularly eat in Japan and served this way it is of the common type you find normally in Japan, with the fish grilled, and with rice and miso soup. It took a while to arrive but it was worth it. I ordered another beer later on, while eating the meal. I tend to eat quite fast, and today was no different. The elderly couple had moved on by this time and a young Chinese couple were seated next to us instead by now. When we had finished the meal, I used the loo then we left the building and walked down to Dymocks. We walked around the Dymocks stationary shop for a while then headed to Eckersley's, the art shop, which is on York Street. We bought some watercolours, brushes, and watercolour paper because she wanted to do some paintings of her dreams.

We headed back to my place and I lay down and had a nap while she painted. When I came out of the bedroom she had almost finished the head page of the series, showing a woman in bed asleep, with the bedspread and window - with blinds - prominent. There is also a side table and a lamp. Later, we walked to Coles and did some shopping, buying food for dinner, which the girl had offered kindly to cook at my place. We prepared three dishes: a beef dish with chilli, ginger, and garlic; a zucchini dish; and a lettuce dish. I was famished by the time it was ready - we ate at about 8pm - and woofed it down. Halfway through I was lying on the sofa groaning with pleasure because I had been having sardines on toast for the past while for dinner.

She left after a while and I didn't walk with her to the bridge because my ankle was playing up a bit. I came back to the flat and got a drink of water, and lay down to watch the news, then got up and sat down at the computer to use social media instead.

Wrote two poems today

I got up this morning a bit early and made some coffee, then went back to bed and slept for a couple more hours. It was raining fairly hard this morning, and when I got up the second time it was still raining. I sat down at the computer and checked poems done the day before. I saw that one of them needed some more work, and I worked a bit more on another poem from last week as well.

Then I started work on a poem about the rain and it came out quite easily. I was happy with it except for the last two lines. I then went out to the sandwich shop to buy a roll - schnitzel, tomato, lettuce and onion - and came back with that and a two-litre bottle of milk, because I had been running low on milk. When I had finished eating the roll I took a look at this morning's poem again and decided to change the final couplet based on the fact that the sun had started to shine again. I had actually worked out some of the two lines - including the essential rhyme - on the way back from the shops. Walking has this effect on you, that it makes things flow.

After finishing the poem I published it on social media then started work on another poem based on some thoughts that I had had on my walk to the sandwich shop - that period of my life when I had quit smoking. Again, this time the poem came out quite quickly, and I tried putting the discarded final couplet from the poem about rain written this morning in it but then decided to do something different. I just had trouble finding a word to rhyme with "lungs" and decided that the half-rhyme "feeling" would be enough, and went with that.

Today was a very productive day, during which not only did I write two original works from scratch, but I also finished two other poems, improving them materially. I feel blessed because although it is summer the temperature is reasonable, and there was no sitting in the chair covered in sweat like there had been before, during the heatwave.

Two trips to Watsons Bay

I was woken a bit earlier than usual this morning by my remembering it was the day I had promised my brother that I would take the iPad out to the Columbarium at St Peter's Church at Watson's Bay and run a FaceTime convo at mum's final resting place. Not long after I woke up the intercom buzzed and it turned out to be the guy delivering my recently-ordered box of wine. I let him in then went back to bed then a little later got up and made some coffee.

Once the PC was booted up I was able to send my brother a message on Messenger about the preliminary date we had made to do the convo and he replied that he was driving but would be home soon, so I should go to Watson's Bay when free. I quickly drank down the coffee I had poured for myself and headed out in the car, taking the ramp up to the Western Distributor then getting into the Cross City Tunnel. At Rushcutter's Bay there was a fair bit of traffic but I made my way patiently along New South Head Road until I arrived and parked in the church grounds. I took the iPad out of the car and dialled up my brother. He answered before it rang out and then I started my brief tour of the Columbarium by going through the gate into the enclosure. I took him right down to the bottom - even though I knew mum's niche, and granny's niche, were up near the top - where there is a stagnant pond. Then I made my way back up to near the gate and took the photo that accompanies this blogpost. I took a photo of granny's plaque as well.

Once back in the car I took the route along Old South Head Road to Surry Hills, then through Chinatown and across to Harris Street, and home. After arriving home I had another cup of coffee, and while I was drinking it the girl rang and said she had been watching a sci-fi TV series yesterday on her computer, and wanted to go out to where there were trees. I asked her if she wanted to go to Watson's Bay, and she demurred, saying that I had just returned from there. I said it was ok, and got in the car and drove down to her place. She came down to the street and we set off up Marsh Street and around beside the airport terminals, then up General Holmes Drive to Kensington, where we turned right across the traffic and I headed up Anzac Parade to Paddington, then along the motorway and down Old South Head Road.

We parked the car on Old South Head Road and headed down to Gibson's Beach - where I grew up - and down the path to Doyle's, where I bought a pack of fish and other fried things, and a bottle of water. The girl had brought her own water. We sat at first near the restaurant but some foolish Chinese were feeding the seagulls, making it a bit of a disaster area, so we headed down to a bench on the esplanade where we finished the fish.

After it was all gone, we headed back to Gibson's Beach - where crowds of secondary school students from the Western Suburbs were walking down the path toward Watson's Bay - and up to Hopetoun Avenue, then into The Crescent and down the path at Parsley Bay, where we sat down at a picnic table and ate some food that she had prepared for a picnic. When that was finished she went for a bit of a walk around the park a couple of times, then we headed up through the park's hinterland to Hopetoun Avenue again. We walked back down to the car and drove off, taking the route of New South Head Road and the Cross City Tunnel, to save time.

When we got back to my apartment I lay down for a nap but then my son called with some news, and I got up to answer his call. I made the girl a pot of tea and she said she wanted to catch the train home because it meant more walking - which she does for her health - but it was still too early to go so we played a game of chess. I won, but more narrowly than on previous occasions. Then I put on my backpack for shopping and we headed out to Pyrmont Bridge, cutting down into the shopping centre to have some wonton soup, before I said goodbye to her. I headed up to Coles and did the shopping, then paid and walked home and unpacked the groceries in the kitchen.

A very warm day

I managed to sleep last night in segments of time but it's all a bit of a blur. I know I was asleep from some of the time at least. I kept on waking up because of the extreme heat. I turned over my pillow twice. It wasn't as bad as it had been at some times up in Queensland when I lived there. At those times I would have a completely sodden pillow where the sweat from my head had accumulated in the night.

This morning I got up late and got out of bed and made some coffee. Then I got the dirty laundry and put it in the washing machine, putting out the recycling garbage as well, with the bottles, in the garbage room on my floor. I turned on the washing and closed the door to the laundry compartment in the kitchen.

After the coffee was finished I tried to drink some wine but it was too acidic - I had finished up with this bottle the previous night, and remembered it had made my stomach churn - so I threw out what was in the glass, then poured the rest of the bottle down the sink. I went back to bed, stripping off my sodden clothes, then immediately got up again as it was too hot in bed. I had tried to read a bit but it was no good, it was just too hot, and I calculated that it would be better to be up and at the computer than in bed in this heat. I got up and got a bottle of rose from the sideboard in the bedroom, and put it in the fridge.

I went out to the computer without a shirt on, just my pants, but when I decided to do a blogpost I realised I would need a shirt because it would look too unseemly to take a photo of myself with no shirt. I thought about messaging the girl but decided against it because she had told me yesterday by message that she wanted to go for three days without messaging me. I had already written a poem for her this morning - it is a poem about being alone - and I went back to reread the poem, as well as some others I have written this year.

While writing this blogpost I got up to make some cheese-on-toast. I also put away the dishes from yesterday, which included some dishes from breakfast, which she had cooked here with me in attendance. Strangely to think, but I heard at some point this morning on the TV that it would rain this afternoon, and that the temperature would be lower. It's hard to credit it, but actually when I look out the window I can see the grey clouds coming across the city, so it might in fact be true. Thank goodness, we've had three days of this heat now and it's not a novelty any more, it's just a trial.

At the costume shop

Last night the girl really wanted to go out so I arranged to meet her at Mr Wong in Bridge Street in the city. I caught a cab there; the cab was dropping someone off outside my apartment building when I got downstairs and I got straight in and went off. We drove across the Western Distributor to King Street, then up to Elizabeth Street, and into Bridge Street. I waited outside for about 10 minutes before she arrived, and in that time I made a booking with the front staff for a table for two.

When she arrived we stood around waiting for most of an hour and when we finally got to the table she was convinced that other people had got seats before us. I wasn't convinced they hadn't either, but said nothing. She, on the other hand, told off one of the wait staff. We ordered fried rice, wonton soup, and some steamed fish fillet with a delicious sesame sauce. I ate mine rapidly because it was so delicious, which is why when she said that she wouldn't go to Mr Wong any more I was disappointed.

When the meal was finished and I had paid we went outside and proceeded to the taxi rank on Bridge Street, and got in a cab, then went home. It was quite late when we got home so we went straight to bed. We got up this morning quite late and made some breakfast, including fried eggs, tomato salad, and fried mushrooms with some fried cashew nuts. Then we got in the car and I started driving to her place but when we got to Euston Road in Alexandria she saw a sign for a shop selling costumes, and went "Ah!" It was hard to find a parking space so I didn't stop but she kept on talking about the shop so just before arriving at her place I turned around and went back to the costume shop.

It was hot inside the shop - which is situated in an old warehouse, with poor ventilation - but we made our way around inside, looking at hats - policeman's cap, soldier's berets, a Turkish fez, a ghost hat - and costumes - a British Bobbie's costumes, a sci-fi princess costume, a 19th century Dandy's costume and others - before she decided on a burgundy velvet top hat, which I bought for her. When we had almost decided on buying the green Turkish fez - and then decided against it - we left the shop and went next door to the cafe where she ordered a vanilla slushie and I ordered a flat white. We sat down at the tables in the cafe to drink our drinks.

When we had finished the drinks we went to her place and since there was no available parking space I let her out and drove back to my place. I noticed that the car lights were set on a different setting - because I had taken the car into the garage to be serviced last week - and switched them back to the normal 'Auto' setting. I came upstairs and opened a beer then opened one of the bottles of wine I had bought yesterday afternoon at the bottle shop up the street.

A sweltering day

The girl came over last night bringing a container full of dumplings for herself, and I had a couple of them, then this morning after we got up - it wasn't too late, about 9.30am by this time - she cooked some more dumplings that I still had in the freezer from an earlier occasion. It was hot in the apartment because of the outside temperature, but she also made some egg pancake with flour and eggs and seasoning - she used harissa seasoning and chilli - which we ate with some baby tomatoes, and a cup of coffee each.

Later she asked me if she could have some sugar for her coffee because without it she said it was too bitter.

Once we had finished and she had had a shower we headed out in the car. She didn't have any contact lenses or her glasses, and because she is so short-sighted, she needed me to take her home. I drove through the heavy traffic and the heat in Alexandria and down to the Princes Highway. After finding a parking spot and dropping her off at her place I got back in the car and drove back to my place, handling the heavy traffic at Fig Street deftly - I'm used to these streets around my place now - and putting the car away in the cool garage without mishap.

After I got inside I poured myself a glass of wine and drank it while attending to social media. I only put up one tweet - to mention that I was having some wine - before I got up and headed to the bedroom and lay down to have a nap. A couple of hours later she sent me two messages, which woke me up, and I decided to get out of bed and get back to the computer. I had been feeling especially optimistic about being on social media this afternoon because of the heatwave we are having in the southeast of the continent, and felt that I could add some value to Twitter especially by tweeting some messages of encouragement to people out there in the community.

I had another glass of wine then sat down at the console. Someone on Facebook was posting about the weather, saying is was a "shite" day. My heart went out to them. I commented on their post. I think I am especially fortunate because I have built up some extra resistance to the heat because of living in southeast Queensland for so long - it was five-and-a-half years up there for me looking after mum. In fact my psychiatrist told me that living in hot climes can have this effect on you, that you develop more sweat glands than usual, and are therefore able to handle higher temperatures when they arise. Today is an exceptionally hot day, to be sure, but it's not especially difficult compared to how it used to get up in Maroochydore, where I lived from June 2009 until February 2015.

So I will keep an eye out for those who are struggling and try to give them some comfort on this day of high heat. Sydney will be the hardest hit metropolitan centre this time, with very high temperatures expected here over the next three days, and with temperatures finally coming down on Monday. If you want to talk about your situation, don't hesitate to get in touch; I'm available on Facebook Messenger as well as Twitter DM. Take care and be good. See you later on.

Grateful to live in a stable society

I got up late this morning and made some coffee, as usual, of which I drank two cups before going back to bed for about 25 minutes. But it was no good. I couldn't go back to sleep, and if you can't go to sleep what's the point of being alone in bed? So I got up and dressed, then went into the bathroom to get two prescriptions that my psychiatrist had filled out. I took a walk down to the pharmacy near Coles and enjoyed seeing people on the street.

There was the young woman walking her dog just up the street, and the crowds of people at the cafe in John Street Square having their lunch break sitting around tables and laughing and talking. There was the man in the hi-vis shirt going into the building that is still - after all these long months - being renovated. There was a workman threading cable down into a manhole cut into the pavement. There were three young women walking abreast up the street next to the cafe set into the casino, one of whom made way for me as we passed. I saw them all and reflected how lucky I am to live in a society where just going to the pharmacy - to buy subsidised medications that are completely affordable - is a routine part of life.

Here there is no scuttling from doorway to doorway to evade snipers perched on rooftops. There is nowhere the sound of bombs going off just down the street, turning neighbourhoods into piles of indistinguishable rubble. There are no tanks roving through the street machine-gunning people who must run out of the way. We might see from time to time a police car cruising at low speed down the street on the watch for trouble, but that is all. We are truly blessed to live in a country as devoted to peaceful pursuits as this one.

When I got back home I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to write a blogpost. I thought about Fernando Pessoa writing his curious entries in his journal under the name Bernardo Soares, a "heteronym" he invented to express this aspect of his personality. Pessoa loved his city of Lisbon and was a great flaneur, walking around watching the people go past and cultivating an organic sense of the city in his fecund mind. I have been reading Pessoa since finishing the Karl Ove Knausgard series of autobiographical novels - I still miss lying down in the evening before going to sleep and reading his stories - because a dear friend of mine sent me his 'The Book of Disquiet'. And I have been enjoying it immensely. Knausgard is a hard act to follow, but Pessoa is up to the challenge, and keeps me entertained for the 30 minutes or so that I spend reading each evening in bed.

A walk to Barangaroo

I got up late this morning and made some coffee before going back into the bedroom and putting water in the iron. I plugged it in and got eight clothes hangers from the closet, then set up the ironing board and adjusted it. I ironed eight shirts in about half an hour, then went back out to the living room and sat down at the computer. I engaged in social media for a while then got up and took a bag and went out. I went to the sandwich shop and put in an order for a chicken schnitzel roll with tomato, lettuce and onion. I paid then went next door to the convenience store to buy two litres of milk.

When I got back home I ate the roll and felt a bit more whole; I had had little food last night and was hungry. I then wrote a poem and republished one of the other ones I had written over the previous few days, with an edited title. Today's poem was about going to the psychiatrist's office every two weeks. I went to bed and had a nap then got up and poured a glass of win a little before the girl sent me a message on the mobile. I could sense that she wanted me to do something, and I turned out to be right. She wanted me to come out for a walk to Barangaroo, so I put on my shoes and got my umbrella - just in case it started raining again; we have had such a lot of rain over the past two days - and set out up the street. I went across the Pyrmont Bridge and then went downstairs using the escalators of an adjacent shopping complex.

I waited downstairs for about 20 minutes before she arrived, and then we set off north. We got to the end of the developed area and I thought she wanted to go to the park, but it turned out she just wanted to see the buildings with all their employees. It was by this time just on 5pm and everyone was coming out of the buildings on their way home. The streets were crowded with commuters heading across the bridge over Hickson Road to Wynyard Station. We headed back down to the south end of Darling Harbour and stopped at a restaurant where we shared a plate of lamb shanks with potato. I also had a Stella Artois beer. Then we headed further down, into Chinatown, and went to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we shared a bowl of noodles and a plate of dumplings.

When we had finished eating we headed across to the Paddy's Markets side of the light rail tracks. I could see a train coming down the line, and headed off, but when I got into the train she called me on my mobile to ask if I wanted to go to a movie at Event Cinemas. I said no - because I was already on the train - and went home, where I poured some more wine into my glass and sat down at the computer, turning on the TV.

Got the car rego done

This morning I was up early to get the car to the garage at 8am for a registration inspection. When I arrived the floor manager said that it had been a year almost since my last car service, and he asked me if I wanted them to do another one. I said yes. When I had handed over the keys I walked out of the garage along Ross Street and luckily an empty cab was on the street, so I got in and came home.

I went back to bed and slept for a few more hours, then got up and went to the computer, logging onto social media. I put together the last pieces of the paperwork needed by my accountant to do the end-of-financial-year accounts. At about 11.30am the garage rang me to tell me the car was ready to pick up, and I left home, heading up the street to where the cabs congregate. I caught a cab to the garage and paid for the service and the rego inspection, then left and drove down Parramatta Road and Broadway to Quay Street, then I turned onto Harris Street and made my way home through the heavy traffic. The rains had made the traffic worse, with some streets flooded and cut off.

At 1pm I left home to take a package of papers to the post office to send off to the accountants. After paying, I went to a restaurant and ordered some noodles, had some sushi and a beer, and ate my lunch. Then I went to the psychiatrist's office and we talked for an hour. At the end of the appointment I left and went home, and went to bed for a nap. At about 5pm I got up and started on the white wine. Later, I had some food for dinner - just a little bit, including some mackerel on toast - and settled down to watching the TV in the evening. I thought about how lucky I am to have a warm, dry home to go to in the evenings, and how I can come and go when I please. It is a great blessing for me.

I have been writing poetry for the past two days, which explains why I haven't been blogging as much here over that period of time. The poetry came back to me because I have replaced my totems from the Queensland days - the magpies and the paperbark - with new ones. I wonder if anyone out there can tell me what my new totems in Sydney are? I have anyway been trying to be positive and helpful to others on social media. I hope that people find my participation to be of use. My aim is to be reliable and encouraging.

Writing poetry again

This morning I had an inkling about the first line of a poem and instead of ignoring the inkling as I would normally do I sat down to the computer and opened up the last Word file from 2015 and copied it with a new name: '2017 sonnets'. I had a nervous feeling tinged with excitement in my stomach as I wrote the first words of the poem I had started in my head. The next line followed and as I put it down I planned the rhyme for line three.

Thus it was that I started to write poetry again. It has been two years since I last wrote poetry. Exactly two years, it transpires (because I date all my poems in the Word file; the date comes directly under the title of the poem). The previous poem was written on 5 February 2015. After that: nothing for two years. Until this morning.

I went back to read the other poems from other years, including the prodigious year of 2013 and the next year of some output: 2014. There are only three poems in 2015. All my finished poems have been saved as PDF files, so that I can quickly go back and read them in isolation. Removed from the company of what precedes them and what follows them in the flow of writing they are more like themselves, and of course inside the folder on the hard drive they sort themselves in alphabetical (not date) order. Rereading the old items I felt something like that same nervous feeling in my stomach. It's as though when I read the old poems I am revisiting a mood, seeing again an image that I had first seen on that day so many years before when I wrote them.

But the interesting thing is that most of the poems in those years were conceived in the summer. It seems that I am most fecund when the weather is warm and the breath slips in and out of the hot body unencumbered by any chill or other temperature-based abeyance. Up in Queensland in 2013 and 2014 I was accompanied, as always in those days, when I wrote poetry, by the twin presences of the park with its enormous paperbark, and the cries in the morning of the magpie. The birds used to settle in ones or twos on my balcony up there in southeast Queensland. And the paperbark was like a sentinel for me - in fact I think on one occasion I likened it to exactly this type of thing in one of my poems.

Down here those things - those totems of my spirit - disappeared replaced by the sounds of the city. The helicopters that fly by over the CBD on their endless quests, and the cars that roar up the street nearby in the night and during the daytime too. These are the new totems for my productive soul.

The sensation of movement in the pit of my stomach is the thing that characterises the experience of poetry for me. I feel vulnerable, exposed. Perhaps that is why it has taken me so long to revisit the experience of writing poetry, now that I am down here in Sydney. I needed to build the ties that bind me to the new totems of my life here. Perhaps that is why it has taken me so long to go back to writing poetry.

Movie review: Paterson, dir Jim Jarmusch (2016)

Nothing much happens in the lives of Paterson (Adam Driver) a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey, and his girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani). While he gets up every morning without an alarm clock at almost exactly the same time - he says there is something special about his watch - she stays at home and paints everything black and white (her favourite colour combination). They have a routine life but they support each other and love each other, and therefore also have a rich and full life. A night out at the black-and-white movies is something to celebrate.

Paterson's poetry - which he captures in a notebook with an elastic catch on the cover - is also something to celebrate for Laura, and she takes every opportunity to tell him what a great poet he is. Paterson is content. Even when Laura's bulldog Marvin eats his notebook he doesn't get angry. But after that happens we know he will continue to write because a stranger in the park who Paterson meets one day gives him a new notebook as a gift. (The stranger, a Japanese man, had come to Paterson because of his love of the poetry of William Carlos Williams, who had lived in Paterson while alive. Williams is Paterson's favourite poet.)

While nothing much happens, the things that do happen seem to have a meaning beyond their immediate significance. When Paterson meets a child who is sitting outside - he thinks he should wait with her until her mother returns to take her home - it turns out she is also a poet, and she reads a piece of her poetry to him. He takes home the first few lines and recites them for Laura.

Laura is busy with her own things, too. She bakes cupcakes for the local farmer's market, and makes a big stack of money. She also gets Paterson to buy her a guitar so that she can become a country-and-Western singer. She has dreams. Meanwhile, Paterson finds that having a mobile phone would sometimes be an asset when his bus inexplicably breaks down while he is out on his route, and he has to borrow someone else's phone to call back to base for help. He might have a stack of poetry books on his bookshelf in the basement, but he doesn't have a mobile. Paterson is a bit odd that way.

He's also odd in the way, each evening when he takes Marvin for a walk, he stops at the bar for a beer. At the bar we meet other people in Paterson's life, such as Everett (William Jackson Harper), who is in love with Marie (Chasten Harmon) although she doesn't reciprocate his affections. He also meets Everett one day when he is taking a walk in the afternoon, when he doesn't have anything on his plate. Everett is something of a philosopher, unlike Donny (Rizwan Manji), who checks off Paterson every morning before he starts his rounds. Donny always has problems at home that he complains about to people. Paterson has Laura at home and he never complains.

What the movie does so well however is to slow things down to a snail's rate of progress. We notice each smile and display of intimacy or dislike. We are drawn into this shadow-play of tiny gestures and our hearts almost start to beat at a more sedate pace. This is a film out of the ordinary. Most films these days hep us up to a high state of excitement with their special effects and explosions. This movie does the complete opposite, so when the Japanese stranger appears at the end we are primed for the explosion of emotion we feel as Paterson denies he is a poet. This doesn't put the stranger off his quest for meaning, however, as he works to experience what it signifies to be a poet in New Jersey.

Had a massage

Up early, I made a pot of coffee and had a cup before heading out down Harris Street to the Powerhouse Museum, where I had agreed to meet the girl to see the Mummies exhibition. I saw it for the first time last Friday but I thought she would get a lot out of it because she likes antiquity in general, and Ancient Egypt specifically, so I booked tickets again. We had agreed to meet at 9.45am but she rocked up - out of breath from hurrying - at 10am. We went to the entrance and she asked if we could go in a bit later; normally tickets for the Powerhouse are sold on the basis that you either go to the early session - from 10am to 1pm - or the late session - from 1pm to 3pm.

The woman at the entrance said it was fine to come along a bit later, so we headed to the cafe and I ordered some eggs with a bagel and avocado. The girl ordered a breakfast wrap, which turned out to contain sausage and bacon and egg. She also got an orange juice, and I got a small flat white. We had our meals then headed into the exhibition. There were a lot fewer people than there had been at the 10am session the previous Friday (which was the day after Australia Day, and a day people were likely to take off work).

She spent a lot of time reading all the information provided in the textual signs affixed to the walls and display cases. When a guided tour came along about five minutes after we entered, we joined it, and it turned out to add a lot of value to the exhibition; I had not had this opportunity on the previous Friday, probably they had not run it due to the crowds. This time, we had the benefit of the learning of a PhD in Egyptology, who was the host on this occasion. He took us round all the displays in the main part of the exhibition, but departed before we entered the enclosure for the Roman mummy.

Later, the girl took my phone and got me to unlock it - she had left hers at home this morning - and went around taking photos of a lot of the displays, and movies of some of the interactive displays and videos in the exhibition. I was tired by this time and went to sit down near the exit, but got back up when she didn't materialise after about 15 minutes; she was still inside photographing things. We went outside after 1pm and got in a taxi on Harris Street and headed home, on the way buying some frozen dumplings and soft buns.

At home we set about making a meal out of the things we had bought. She also made a kind of crepe with eggs, flour and chilli using a plain frying pan and a bit of oil. I opened up the second window - one of the windows to the balcony is always open, the one with the fly screen - to offset the smoke she made. She also sliced up a mango for eating with fingers for dessert. After lunch we had a bit of a nap then later I had a glass of wine. I did the dishes. She went to the website of a file transfer platform in order to get the photos from my phone to her email; they were too big to send using the phone itself due to memory constraints.

Later, she decided she wanted me to have a massage so we left after 7pm and headed down toward the Pyrmont Bridge where there is a Thai massage place. It was fascinating for me, as I have never had a massage before. The masseuse had very strong hands and we had booked a 90-minute session each, each in a separate room. The masseuse put me on my stomach and started on my feet and legs, then did the torso, then the arms. Then she turned me over onto my back and set to working again on the legs and arms. Last of all she did the neck and head. I felt extremely wobbly at first and had a bit of trouble standing to put my clothes back on, but I managed in the end. I paid and we left; I took the girl down to the bridge and saw her off as she had decided to go home on the train.

Went to the city

This morning I got up early because the cleaners were coming to do their thing but they were quite late arriving, which upset my plans because I had told a friend I would come to his office in the city in the morning. Before they arrived I lay down in bed and finally they buzzed at the intercom. They came upstairs and unpacked and started on the bathrooms. I went to the living room and lay down on the couch to wait until they had finished. When they had completed the work I gave the head cleaner the envelope with the money in it and let them out the door. Then I went back to bed, asking my friend if I should come later.

Unfortunately, he didn't reply until the early afternoon, by which time I had had a further nap. I got up then and went across the Pyrmont Bridge into the city. The girl phoned me while I was still on the bridge and asked me if I wanted to have lunch; she had just done an interview for a job and wanted to debrief. I went to my friend's office and signed the papers he wanted me to sign, then I left his office and headed south toward the QVB, where she was waiting for me on the street.

We went to the Westfield complex and sat down at a table at an Italian restaurant. I ordered lasagne and she ordered ravioli. I also ordered a beer. While we ate we talked about her interview, with her asking a dozen questions in the time it took me to answer one. After I had paid for the lunch we went down to the street and I headed off home, and so did she to hers. When I got home I checked the mail and found a letter from my compulsory third party insurance company and the renewal notice for my car registration. I took everything upstairs and then went to bed to have a nap. When I got up I had a glass of wine and opened the mail. I went online and paid the CTP insurance cover for the car - mandatory in New South Wales - and had a look at another insurance letter I had received recently. This letter turned out to be insurance for the car itself; I had thought it was CTP as well. I had filed this letter and having read it again, put it back in the folder. There was nothing I had to do with it.

Later, I made some cheese-and-tomato-on-toast and ate it in front of the computer. I had a conversation on Messenger with a friend overseas about a dog I had seen in the street today (she has a dog of the same breed), then I went down to the convenience store to get more cash so that I could put money in another white envelope for the cleaners for when they come in two weeks' time. I then took a call from the girl, and went back to social media. It has been a slow day for me online with the main news being the US president's combative phone call with out prime minister over the matter of refugees currently in tropical detention centres. There's not much to say about this phone call, partly because the outcome - will the US take the refugees or not - is still to be decided in the future as there has to be an extended vetting process first. So we don't know how many - if any - refugees the US will take from Manus Island and Nauru, or when. It's still all up in the air.

In the swimming pool

We got up a bit late this morning and started on breakfast. The girl cooked it: eggs, peas-in-the-pod, steamed sweet potato and cherry tomatoes. After eating we went down to the pool where she had a swim. I sat and watched. I haven't got around to thinking it's inevitable that I'll get back in the pool. I associate swimming with illness, because the last time - in 2008 - that I was swimming it was because I was struggling with a terrible mental illness. So I'm sticking with the dieting at present.

We came back upstairs and got ready for me to take her back to her place. I carried her Georgia O'Keeffe print down to the car with two bags of new clothes. She carried the jackets we had bought and the Renaissance art book. We got in the car and hit the traffic, stopping in Glebe to pick up some tuna sushi (cooked tuna) sprinkled with chilli. When we got to her place, I found a parking spot and took the stuff up to her room, then I gave her a peck on the cheek and headed back to the car. The traffic was quite bad on the Princes Highway on the way back. There seemed to be a build-up of trucks at one of the right-hand turns off the highway that was spilling out of the transit lane into the right-hand lane of the main thoroughfare. I made it back and opened the wine and poured a glass.

I sat down at the computer and attended to social media, making a few tweets. Then I got up and had some cheese. A little later I had a can of tuna and some sliced pawpaw. Then I went back to bed and had a nap for a couple of hours. I got up when she contacted me on Messenger with news from the interview panel for tomorrow. She will be going into town to have an interview for a producer's job.

After I got up I sat down at the computer again and focused my attention on making a positive contribution to the world by helping to affirm people's personalities. I have a simple credo when it comes to using social media: be positive. It helps me to spend time online productively even though for some it's not enough. I know there are many people on social media who need to air their personal grievances, especially when they're expressed in a political fashion. But for me it's about making people feel important, needed and wanted. I try to affirm, not attack.