Post-Christmas

Today after an afternoon nap I decided to take a bus to Maroubra beach – somewhere in Sydney I’ve never been to before. Just near where I got off the bus I came across a wonderful rock pool and sitting on the rocks surrounding the pool on a sunny summer afternoon I realised that there are many aspects about Sydney that make it a great place to live. There are not many cities where you can go swimming at the beach before or after work! I’m working the rest of this week I’m working, but as I’m teaching afternoons I might go down to Maroubra again for a swim before work. Not a bad way to start the day!

Qurban and Munazza ended up coming over for Christmas lunch, although they didn’t end up staying very long as Munazza hasn’t been feeling so well. I made them another of my Sri Lankan feasts – not exactly a traditional Christmas lunch, but given that none of us were celebrating Christmas as such, I don’t think that really matters. The rest of the day I did some reading. Cath has a very eclectic collection of books and I’m enjoying just taking it easy with an interesting book. Have just finished Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’, which of course has been the subject of 2 films. I saw ‘Capote’ when I was in Praha , so was quite excited when I saw ‘In Cold Blood’ amongst Cath’s collection. Like the film there’s a disturbing quality to the book – feeling completely repulsed by the wanton killing of this family, yet at the same time feeling a degree of sympathy for the 2 killers.

Yesterday evening I spoke to Kirsten and Jon, who are down in Melbourne celebrating Christmas with family down there. It only made it to 14 degrees in Melbourne yesterday and parts of Tasmania, Victoria and NSW actually had a white Christmas! Snow in the middle of summer! Luckily Sydney wasn’t quite so cold. Christmas Day started off quite grey, but by mid-morning the sun had come out and it ended up being quite warm. Not as hot as Perth though, where it was in the mid-30s.

So that’s Christmas for another year. Who knows where I’ll be for Christmas next year. I think I have 4 weeks off over Christmas and have been thinking that it’ll be a great time to visit India, but I might come back to Australia. We’ll see.