I've just come back from the Bay where I dropped off Padma who caught the 5.45 a.m. bus for her 5-hour journey to Sydney's International Airport. Better her than me!
Even though I wouldn't want to make a habit of them, I love those early melancholy mornings when, for a short moment, the few people who are about, seem connected by some sort of comraderie.
The American painter Edward Hopper captured those moments perfectly in his paintings which depict sad and lonely scenes, and yet which don't make us sad ... perhaps because we are allowed to witness an echo of our own griefs and disappointments, and thereby feel less personally persecuted and beset by them.
I drove home slowly and in a reflective mood to drink an early cup of tea by the end of which I was ready to feed the dogs and the ducks and to face the peninsular - "almost island" - world of "Riverbend".
