Sven's life in Oz

Australia is an arid, parched land most of the year. Not that we city-dwellers would know it: I turn on the tap and water comes out, so I don’t ask any questions. I seldom think that only a few hours drive away there’s a giant desert the size of Europe where every drop of water is trapped and reused three times before it eventually evaporates away. But the idea that we live in a paradise of perpetual summer is not entirely accurate. It may not ever freeze in the Red Centre, but Sydney gets cold in a hurry when winter arrives and I am never prepared for it.

Before I continue I should  define the term ‘cold’. I am not talking northern hemisphere cold. If it ever snows in Sydney I’ll eat my bobble hat. I don’t think I’ve even seen a frost in the city, although last year the temperature did drop to -1C overnight. The days usually peak at around 12/13C in the coldest period, which may not seem all that frigid to you, but when it’s 30C on an average day a 20-degree drop feels pretty baltic to me.

As usual I caught the first cold of the season, spread it around the office and got it back again with interest. I was feeling smug to have shifted it in two days, little suspecting my colleagues were just looking after it for me. I’m beginning to think I’m some kind of influenza incubator; a common-cold Typhoid Mary just waiting for the next wintry snap to spread my infection like a seasonal plague.

Last week I packed up the fans and rolled out the heaters as my aluminium-framed windows aren’t exactly built for the colder seasons and, this being Sydney, central heating is unheard of. I admitted defeat and accepted the summer was over when I dragged my duvet out of the cupboard and installed it on the bed. I dug my slippers out from the back of the drawer and wrapped myself in a blanket while I watched tv. I am a beaten man.

Winter in Sydney is horrible for two reasons. Firstly, it’s not Christmas. In the UK winter means the end of the year, a winding down from the summer and a ramping up of the party season as we race towards December. Here there’s nothing to look forward to but the return of summer. There’s no Christmas, no New Year and no party season. It’s just an inconvenient three-month interregnum between barbecues and pool parties. And secondly, nothing happens. Everyone rugs up, stays in and waits for the sun to come back. When you live in an outdoors-y nation like this one, you forget how to entertain yourself at home. By September everyone has gone stir-crazy and deathly pale.

At least this year I have three things to look forward to: my holiday in NYC, my birthday and my sister’s wedding. I’m sure that will keep the blues at bay. Now, where did I put that Scrabble?

Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas break as much as I did. Mel & Phil, friends from the UK, came to stay and we three and James spent the holiday rolling from one drunken party to the next for the fortnight. And we squeezed in a wine tour in the Hunter Valley, a night in the Blue Mountains and a mini-hike in the rainforest, too. And did I mention we had three Christmas dinners? And spent Christmas Day in a very swanky house in Bellevue Hill? And drank enough sparkling wine to put a lesser man off it for life? Well, we did. It was all very lovely, not at all restful and thoroughly good fun.

Back in 1988, when I was eight years old, I remember having a conversation with the other kids at school about where we would be in the year 2000. We were all chuffed to pieces to be turning 21 on the millennium (how many people can say that?) and although I don’t remember where I thought I would be (the moon? I was a bit of a dreamer) I do remember feeling like it was so far ahead of me that I could barely conceive it. Now I find myself amazed at how far behind me all that is. I could never have imagined 2010, and yet here we are, living the in the future. Does anyone else wonder how the hell we all ended up here? I am constantly amazed at the way things work out. I shan’t bore you with a retrospective of the year, or the decade, that was; I have lived, loved, learned and lost as we all have. Take stock of your own year and join me at the bar when you’re ready to move on.

So, what does 2010 hold? Surprises, no doubt. This will be my third decade and apparently the one where I learn my lessons, grow up and become an adult. It all sounds rather dull if you ask me. That said, every time I think life is getting a bit mundane I remind myself of something I read somewhere, about how we’re all hanging onto a giant spinning rock hurtling through space at 25,000 mph, around a giant nuclear ball of fire which is also racing into the darkness at a million miles an hour, and somehow we think this is normal. Even the boring bits of life seem quite exciting when you think of the deadly, celestial Wacky Races we’re all managing to survive day in, day out.

So, while gravity and the nuclear forces keep us from colliding with a black hole and killing us off, I shall get on with my life like I do most days. I’m a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, but only ones that move you forward. Giving up things is good, but I like the ones that make you a better person by the end of it. Last year I resolved to build a life here and enjoy living in Australia more, and I can honestly say that I have done that. This year, I will see more of the country, and the world. And I’ll also enrol on my Masters degree. That’s it. Just two. But big ones, don’t you think?

Have a super 2010. I know I will.

I shall be poolside by the time you read this. It may not be Christmassy weather, but at least I shall have a decent tan. Have a fantastic holiday!

Seriously, watch this and then tell me you wouldn’t give your eye-teeth for a dose of retcon and the chance to see it all again from the start.

Battlestar Galactica – Epic Series Trailer from Tom Howard on Vimeo.

So, yesterday while I was sitting at home tearing my hair out about how I’m going to write a communications strategy for a five-year project in less than a fortnight, the nice enough chap was outside my apartment building anonymously returning some DVDs that he borrowed back when we were seeing one another. Clearly they were such compelling viewing that he felt he needed hang onto them for three months since borrowing them and then calling it a day. He dropped them in my letterbox and sped off into the night, then sent me a message on facebook telling me that he had done so, and inviting me out for a Christmas drink. Now, call me old-fashioned, but that just seems a bit odd. Why not just ring the bell?

I was far too busy working to pay it much attention, but on the trip into work this morning I got to wondering (as you do on a train ride when you finish your book much sooner than you expect) about what it could all possibly mean. Why didn’t he ring the bell? Dumping and running is the kind of thing you do when you don’t want to bump into someone. But why then send a message at all? I would have known they were from him. How many other people would leave two series of The Tudors in my letterbox? And why invite me for an “xmas bevvy” too? Is that some passive aggressive way of ‘being friends’ without being the one who says “let’s not”? How should I respond? Should I be cheerful and up for a drink? Should I simply say thanks and kick the meeting into the long grass – new year’s drink, Easter drink, never? Should I simply say “thanks for the DVDs and have a great Christmas”?And round and round we go.

Poor old Peter, my long-suffering office-roomie, got the quandary right between the eyes when I finally reached my desk. He seems to have grasped quite quickly that I can disappear down a mental sinkhole at the drop of a hat. Before I had even concluded the cycle with a plaintive “what does it all meeeeeean?” he had cut in.

“Don’t read so much into it, Sven. It’s probably nothing.”

He was right. I replied tonight with a witty, self-deprecating note of thanks and a “give me a shout when you are free”. Turns out he was parked across the driveway and someone was waiting to get into the car park.

We’re having that drink next week.