Padma caught the early-morning train to Sydney to donate eight home-made blanket to the LIFEHOUSE while I stayed behind in Bomaderry to pop into the nearby SALVOS op-shop in Nowra and the Animal Welfare League op-shop in Bomaberry.
I came away with a beautiful copy of "Explain That - 31 Intriguing Reasons Why"; a slim volume of "Wild Figments" by Michael Leunig; Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational - The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions"; a hardcover copy of Michael Lewis's "Boomerang - Travels in the New Third World - by now you will have noticed that I favour non-fiction books - and "A Very Short History of the World" by Geoffrey Blainey. I already have his "A Short History of the World" and thought this was different; it is but only by one word, the "Very" in the title.
With the train to and from Sydney taking well over six hours, I had plenty of time off the leash and prowled around Bomaderry to figure out if I still liked it as much on a cold wintry day as I had only a few months earlier. The charm had worn off a little, and despite some very slow gentrification the place still had quite a down-at-heel appearance.
To me, Bomaderry's main attraction is its train station as I have always loved train travel, perhaps because it's a metaphor for life, or at least life as I would like it to be: linear, uncluttered, and ever-progressing.
I certainly wouldn't like to be living next to Number 37 despite the prospect of being able to borrow a ride-on mower from them - if ever there was a need for one on the tiny six-hundred-square-metre blocks. The occupants of Number 37 clearly had obviated the need for a mower by covering their whole lawn with them. What a bunch of clever clogs!
(Domain.com.au puts a price estimate of $590,000 on the house with the broken-down mowers (are all those broken-down mowers included in the price?) - click here - and offers an intriguing bird's eye view of the back of the property: many, many, many more broken-down mowers!)
Then it was time for a quick Lunch Time Special at our friends' place who are the typical Aussie Battlers, except that they're Chinese and speak very little English: they work from nine o'clock until nine o'clock, seven days a week, and have been doing so for over ten years, just to pay off a mortgage and give their two children a better future. To top it all off, this was another really bad day with fewer than ten customers.
By this time Padma had sent me a photo of herself from Sydney Central Station to remind me that my free time was coming to an end ...
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Click here for a substitute
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... and that I should get ready for the long drive home. One last photo of our friends and a promise to meet during the winter school holidays when their teenage son Kevin will be helping them in the restaurant.
The best part about going away is coming home (I never thought I would ever hear myself say that!)
