So finally after six weeks in Australia I find a job I actually want and took it. It is also a twistedly glowy perverse happenstance, that it is the exact same job that Sharon does in London, Sharon being one of the last people I saw in England before I left. I am working at Wunderman Cato Johnson, an advertising agency in North Sydney, and am Co-ordinating the production of a gift catalogue for Citibank, which will be sent to all their credit card holders in Australia. Every morning I hop on the bus on the Coogee beach promenade, wistfully glancing out of the window at the germinating waves tickling the beach. The sun nibbles upon it's breakfast of coals as it glides up in the air, over the shimmering water for another day of roasting those who don't work, sitting in the imprint of last week's self. The double decker train then glides me across the coathanger (harbour bridge) past the opera house on my right and yachts below me to the left, their sails a tonic to the curls of A4 paper that roll out of the breeze of air conditioning on the fax machine. Typically my first week at work has been the hottest since I have been here, four days in a row with no clouds to filter the UV beetroot cannon. Summer officially started yesterday, and I am indoors. It better hold til the weekend or this bunnies going a slashing in the carrot fields. I started work at the right time it seems, as last night was the Young and Rubicon/WCJ Xmas party, which despite being a new and temporary person, I was invited to. The theme was 'fantasy island' and all guests were donned in attires of dreamlike visages…some bordered upon fetishism. Not having brought my 'Puff the magic dragon' costume with me in my rucksack, I settled for an obvious islandic hawaiian shirt, floral ley, and a splash of glitter for the fantastical. The party itself was on Goat island, a small island in Sydney harbour, with stunning views of the skyline and bridge. A ferry gathered the sparkly crowd and after a few near gap misses across the gangplank, wobbled across the harbour, glistening in the dusken light. It was at this wobling conjecture that I made the decision I would not partake too heavily in the alcoholic carnage that would soon ensue, as if a wobbly boat could make a stern sober jay lose his sea legs, then an inebriated alter jego would surely rainbow the bow. We were greeted by a white sailor suited dwarf woman ( all 3 foot of her) and a skinny man with bleached plastic hair and a german accent, like lenny beige or some cheesy gameshow host. "Velcome to fantasee island..Vot is yor fantaseeee" he lurched, I skulked away swiftly before he could ask me…. The main venue was a converted small boatyard, with live band and plenty of food and drink. We were plied with tequilla sunrises as the sun set, and like a true goat I ate everything that past my nose on a tray, maybe this belly filling helped me to retain my sobriety and dignity as those around lost theirs? There were masseurs, padded sumo costumes for wrestling, bungee running and fortune tellers. I had my palm read, and the reading was spot on. Out of no-where a brass band just appeared from the woods, walked once through the venue, parting the crowd, and walked back into the woods, like some irrelevant scene from a Monty Python sketch. Later on a stripper appeared, and stood in her g-string as blokes were invited to paint her skin with brushes, many volunteered, sadly I missed the action as at this time I was wandering around the 'entrance prohibited' trail along the back of the island. Why, how was I supposed to read the signs in the dark? I don't eat carrots, I destroy them on rainy days. Despite it only being my third day, I had quite a high retention rate on the new names I had flying in and out of my ears, and the fact that I could barely recognise co-workers without masks let alone with , didn't seem to matter too much. I met one english girl who knew several of my friends back home (toby and richard) as the industry is so small! We chin wagged and discussed Toby Thornes notoriously long tongue, which felt alien on the other side of the planet to the tongue itself. Soon it was time to set sail, and the moment of truth came…I could stomach the ride on the boat- hoorah! So to celebrate I sensibly stayed up until 3am at the post-party party in Sydney and had some wonderful chocolate cream Toblerone cocktails and a dance to celebrate.- hic-. Needless to say the office is a morgue today. Xmas 1999 ' Wooloomooloo ' said the owl. Or at least in my head, as i left the flat at 9.30opm last night and headed for the beach., wondering just exactly how wonderful it would be to hear a teeny tawny sing out my favourite Sydney place name mid-flight. Despite the irish whirlwinds that have swept away much of the dirt and fagdust in the flat, I still had the need to flee to the sea, and last night I was glad that I did. I'm not sure whether it was because of the winter solstice (does it still happen in the summery southern hemisphere?), but the moon was about as strong as I had seen it for ages, and was fuller than last weeks volcanoes on Io. It's dreamy allure quilted the sands on Coogee beach, rendering colour into the usually monotone palette of night. You could see all the individuals sat on the sands, even the colours of their coats as they huddled together against the sea breeze. The ocean itself was an illuminous satin tarpaulin, as the waves reverberated the shimmering perforations of white moonlight, sweeping them into albino horses which recoiled and dematerialised at the mouth of the sand. I decided to go for a short walk along the cliff path, the wooloomooloo owl still chattering away in my ear, replacing the crickets (and thankfully the second hand alarm clocks) which were being strangely silent. As I snuck past the brilliant grey fronds of oceanic fauna reaching out from the side of the trail. I'd just got to the entrance steps of the 'ladies and children ONLY' ocean pool, when I heard a hollow wooden rhythm drifting up in the cool night air, in fact I heard several rhythms overlapping on different beat layers, vibrating like sheets of audio lasagne over the mince air. I turned the corner of the clifftop and looked back towards the Amazon pasta sounds. Half way down the cliff-face, by the saltwater pool carved into the rock, I saw the hearthy glow of a campfire, and a gathering of people stone framed by moonlight. Of course I had to get closer, so I backtracked along the path, and had to accidently-on-purpose not see the 'women and children ONLY' sign, and tiptoe down the 'would-be-if-it-wasn't-for-moonlight' dark wooden steps to the pool area. Behind a wooden fence I saw the heart of the beat. 28 women wrapped in wool for warmth, sat on the rocks with bongo drums. It was only after listening to what they were chanting ( "go girl, get on your bike, go girl you're a motorcycling dyke") that I realised I stumbled across some kind of lesbian convention. Regardless I laid down on a patch of grass behind the fence, (relatively hidden to prevent potential cliff edge ejection for trespassing) and looked out to sea and up at the stars. The patter of tender palms on the bongo drum skins swaying like a bedtime lullaby in the fresh outdoor air, as the final winged embers of campfire danced into the night like flies. I gazed up at the ever present, completed crescent, and noticed something I hadn't seen from the promenade because of the additional artificial lighting. Around the moon was not only an aura halo composed of a subtle rainbow, but in the fine misty transparent veil of sky was a moon dog that stretched out in a giant sphere from it's lunar core, I'd never seen one like this before, it was even more dramatic than the sun dogs I had seen on cloudy days. Inside the dog the night sky was a totally different shade to outside, but the pinhole constellations were visible through both. I lay on the grass and pondered natures nocturnal ceiling, until the drummers began to wane and the firelight dwindled to a festive close. Xmas eve to new years With the 'never changing wherever you go in the world' office folly washed out of my hair for another century, I dashed home and bleached out it's ills with a bottle of peroxide. Yes, inspired by the yellow crested Cockatoos , I (cocka)too have a crown to frill up during mating rituals. Xmas eve was of course spent down the pub, but after a few scooners of beer, instead of tottering off home to hang up my socks for the big red man, I went to catholic midnight mass with the irish housemates. It was quite difficult keeping a straight face when the irish lass beside you has the giggles at the priest. The hymn words on the overhead projector to a song you don't know aren't quite visible to the unglassed eye, and the tune sounds like REM 'everybody hurts'. Add this to thoughts of communial bread and wine being eaten by hannibal lecter with liver, streamers wobbling in air conditioning and a 'vault of christ' hologram that they couldn't get working, leading us to believe that the priest himself was a hologram sent to deceive us while the real preist robbed our houses, and you get a merry sermon to usher in xmas day. And a goodnight jiggle from the hips of Elvis the cockroach while I brushed my teeth, reminded me that I wasn't in Kansas any more. I may have been far from england, but it felt just like home…that is to say, the weather was crap. Xmas morning, I sat on the beach in my shorts, and mulled the grey clouds rolling overhead, and studied the raindrop pitted orange craters on which my feet did rest. I had actually been woken at 9am by a call from home, which I admit made me a little homesick. Fortunately the sun decided it would tread on our toes with a small samba, and burst through the clouds for the afternoon. We had a house barbeque with lashings of food, big steaks (cow not roo) , turkey, salad and of course prawns, so we got to say the immortal line: "chuck another shrimp on the barbie mate." Everyone around was wearing santa hats, and there were even a few fully clad santas on the sands, which looked odd, even odder when they went swimming fully santa'd. Just like home, the native birds were pecking at the bottle tops, but blue tits after the cream under the tinfoil tops of milkbottles were replaced here by mynnah birds tapping away at the tin topped stubbies of victoria bitter! I got a little worried we may get arrested and spend xmas in jail, as everyone knows it is illegal to supply alcohol to mynnahs. After xmas lunch I gathered my wares, towel and beers, and headed out over the clifftop path to bondi beach on my own, where i hoped to meet up with Beth, Kelly and Fay, some of my better friends here, who I met at Heathrow! It took a good hour to get there, every bay along the way tempting me to stop for beer in my santa hat and go no further, but I resisted. The walk did wonders for persuading the steak that it really DID want to be digested, and eventually I was perched on the sands of bondi.  It wasn't as crowded as I imagined it would be, but there wasn't an ozzie in sight! Huddled into their respective geographical groups were english, irish scots, canadians, dutch and every nationality except antipodean. Around the beer filled eskies and sunbathers in foam reindeer antlers, were all manner of xmas parashiznitfanalla, inflatable xmas trees, tinsel shining in the sun, wrapping paper and sand-snowmen. A few people even brought down the xmas tree from their licing room, needles dropping onto the sand and ballballs shimmering in the afternoon sun. A few trees ended up in the sea, and one individual was spotted trying to use his tree as a surfboard…needless to say he didn't catch many good waves on it!
I was searching for the welsh dragon, as that would be where I would find Beth and co. Up and down the beach I pottered, but alas, no sign of Cymru's crest among the international plumage. After getting the obligatory photo of myself by the British flag, taken by a random Norwegian girl in a bikini, I headed off back to Coogee.
I eventually settled down on the beach with my beer at around 7pm, by this time the heat had died, and I didn't feel the urge to go for a swim as the cool coastal air ruffled needles and the antlers of angels. Xmas night was subdued too, a few quiet beers in the flat, some xmas pud, then an early night, I was tired from all the walking and my late night in church.
I was awoken on Boxing day by another call from home, reminding me not only how tired I was, but how far away too. It was well and truly cloudy by now, so beaches were out of the question. Feeling a little unloved, and sick of Coogee, I thought it would be a good idea to go and see my cousin and her family in Hornsby, after watching the start of the Sydney to Hobart boat race. Due to the fact that coogee is full of backpackers, and that Telstra (the oz phone company) are shite, all the phone boxes in coogee were either not accepting coins, or having huge queues waiting to use them. After an hour I had managed to make my call and was on my way.
In perverse mirroring of my (soon to come email) new years eve location, I found myself bang on top of the opera house, only to find the boats leave the harbour from the other side, near Watsons Bay, making them a little too far away to see properly. I did however see lots of white triangles on the horizon wobbling away to an undetermined (and ultimately ill fated- only a handful finished) destiny. Unperturbed I head for the train station, and gaze at the dried shrubbery as my double decker train trundles north under the skies lavish grey quilt. It was good to see my relatives again, it felt much more like xmas at their house, excited children, proper decorations (rather than paper and string jobbies), yummy food and familiar faces that stretch back to childhood, which so few seem to do these days. Sam and Tess, the ozzie tykes who came to visit Norwich just before I left, enchanted me with a catchy ditty that went: " everybody knows that frogs go POP in the microwave…". And lucky me, santa had brought htem their very own game of 'guess who' for xmas, seeing how much they loved mine, so john got to play it all over again. Has your person got white facial hair and rosy cheeks? Is it Anita? After a hilly-yet-snake free bushwalk it was time to head back to town, where I went dancing and made several new friends, including a bloke called MatT, who I have met several times since.
The run up to new years eve was pretty boring to be honest, every day had a cloud to it, and the only silver linings were courtesy of the house snail. The waves in the sea were being brutal, they ripped away the leash from my bodyboard, and pummelled my chin on the seabed, then a shark was sighted and everyone was called out of the water until it went away..but after that I had gone off the idea of returning to the water that day!
The major scandal of the week was the mysterious death of Elvis! He had been eating a lot of the bathroom talcum powder that runs in lines on the tiled floor, and was found one morning floating, legs a kimber in the toilet bowl, I guess he just consumed to excess and fell off.the porcalin throne, though I am not ruling out the possibility of a household conspiracy, I know they really wanted him dead……….
The end of the century I met the last day of the year with confusion. Was it really the end of the twentieth century? Or are those who argue it begins Jan 1st 2001 correct? Eventually I decided to at least pretend it is for now, that way the night would be better, and if it wasn't the centuries end, I'd have a great excuse to make next year even better. While I wasn't sure about the end of the century, it certainly felt like the end of the world. Dec 31st 1999, I sat on the sand on Coogee beach, 'Beach closed' signs lying on their sides in preparation for the night ahead. The waves in the sea were very rough and the sky was filled with patchy grey clouds, ominously rolling across the blue and blocking the sun, their shadows hanging over the sand ripples as the breeze carried them henceforth. The beach was pretty quiet, across from me two teenagers were throwing a big rubber missile at each other and catching it…..sometimes. It made an eerie whistling noise as it glided through the air, and whenever the missile struck the ground there was silence, and the sun would go in for a few more seconds, bringing the end of the world closer with each. I managed to get hold of Beth this time, and make proper arrangements to meet up, rather than chance it, especially as I have had a recurring theme of becoming abandoned at the last minute on new years eve! I also gave my friend Matt the mobile number of someone with us, in case he wanted to join us. We were of course wanting to see the fireworks in Sydney harbour, and like the rest of New South Wales, decided we should arrive early to avoid the traffic. Beth had found a good spot directly opposite the harbour, at Strickland House, which is along a protruding head leading to Watsons Bay. En-route I passed dozens of English and Irish backpackers, with big Dr.Suess hats bearing their native flag, and boxes of beer stubbies under their arms. At 4pm I found my group settled down on a collection of picnic blankets on a hill, and a big crisp white duvet (Ozzies call them 'dunas') from Beths flat, dipping into the beers early. Kelly and Faye were there, I hadnt seen them since they left Sydney to go cotton chipping in Dubbo. One description from Cockney Kelly of the current status of her feet was enough to put me off the idea of trying that little occupational activity. I cracked open a beer and started the ritualistic looking at the watch. A small crowd soon gathered, all camping out on the hill below the white house with their beers, tinsel and high spirits. From the hill we had to stand to see over the treetops, but after doing so we could see the bridge and opera house, all be they a little distant, and the sky a little hazy. Every hour a representative from the group behind us would run around the crowd with the hours to go until 2000 written on the lid of their esky (beer cooler box) held high, to cheers from the crowd. (The "1 hour to go!" sign was accompanied by 6 blokes running out from the trees stark naked in the dark). One of the girls in our group, on overhearing Beth call me PBJ (pixie boy jay) thought it stood for Peanut Butter and Jelly, I advised her that she was not to start calling me that. Sadly, like the real thing, it stuck. I made sure everyone had overdosed on pixie sparklez, using some magic glitter gel that the devine Heather had mailed me for xmas. Before too long (it seems shorter in retrospect!) the first firework show at 9pm began. I ran down to the small beach below the hill for a better view, and stood on the rocks, the harbour water lapping at them and the dozens of yachts parked in front of me bobbing up and down. Apparently Tom Cruise and Ewan Mcgregor were out there on yachts somewhere. I was disappointed at the distance from the fireworks. While I could see all of them, I didn't get the satisfying bangs overhead that scare the shugar out of you, or the jaw dropping awe of looking up at an illuminous mushroom of fire. There were some good rockets though, I'd never seen an explosion in the shape of a clean cut five point star or swirl before. After ten minutes it was back to the duna for beer and more clockwatching. I pondered whether I should leave and get closer to the harbour, perversely being in the exact spot where the boat race was on boxing day, and wishing I was in the spot I had then! I decided that despite the awesome views I could get (if I ever made it that far in 3 hours and 1.1 million people) I would rather stay with my friends than shoot off on my own again and continue my new years abandonment streak! Come midnight everyone was getting excited and prepping their bottles of champers for eruption, or looking for their shoes in the debris. There was no real countdown, so there was some confusion as to when the century actually ended, I know the last two words I said were a girls name, and then there was a big white, bright firework, and the 21st century had arrived, almost like it had been there all along. The firework display was very good, if a little unclear on the horizon, and silent, bangs rendering as muffled whisps, and the face on the bridge a bit of a blur. The action went on for 25mins and climaxed with explosions from the roof of Centrepoint, the cbd, opera house, bridge and north sydney, from our viewpoint we could see it all in one eyeful, which was grand  (photo roughly taken from our location). Beth coated us in champagne, and we all had hooters to blow and annoy the sleeping birds with.
After the event we decided to make the walk to Bondi beach to see the sunrise, lucky me got to carry the duna of desire, dragging it along the street like a wedding veil, and alluring many passers by in for a new years kiss. At some point one of the girls ended up being pushed along in a woolworths shopping trolley, while clutching her whisky bottle for dear life. A young italian pianist in a black velvet suit appeardf rom somewhere and joined us on the trip, I managed to pass off the duna on him and ran away. We did wonder which direction bondi actually was, but we only had to follow the massive spotlights sweeping the night sky to correct our course.
When we finally arrived (our number had dwindled from 14 to 6) it was drizzling with rain, and the white horses from the waves were massive. Coastguards patrolled the edge on red quad bikes, trying to stop drunken revellers from going out in the dangerous waters. Bondi was the location of the biggest new years eve clubbing event. The sixty pound a ticket Mobile 'Home' nightclub, british dj Carl Cox was playing to 16,000 people on the promenade. The event was heavily fenced off, so we all had to be content with dancing on the sand and watching the lights..that is until the crowd outside stormed the perimeter fence at 4am, sending it crashing down on the sand so that everyone could pile in for free!! We danced on the promenade for an hour in the rain, and managed to bump into a few friends. The green strobe lights from the club rippled out into space, bouncing off the clouds and the white swash of sea. They were also projected onto the rocks at the edge of the beach, and made the motion of a large man running, dancing and rolling, it looked quite spectacular.
The event drew to a close at dawn, around 5am. Sadly there was so much cloud, there was no sunrise to be seen, just cold, drizzly daylight to summon 2000. Exhausted, I said my goodbyes and walked along the cliffs back towards Coogee, being greeted by all I passed. I called home from a phone box on the cliffs of Bronte beach to greet my family in the century behind me. I'd almost made it back to Coogee, when I was invited into an open garage by a group of elderly ozzies, they had built a bar in there and were in their party hats. At their insistence, I had a bottle of victoria bitter for breakfast, and tried to keep my eyes open to their tales of papua new guinea, before crashing into my own bed at 8am. I slept most of the day, and was woken by the phone at 3pm. It seems I managed not to be abandoned, by passing the baton of abandonment onto Matt, who lost his friends after nine, and spent the big bang alone, not being able to get through on the number we'd given him. About the only sign of the millennium bug, and the end of the world. The rest of the day was spent watching tv coverage of all the firework displays across the world, missing england a little, and trying to tell canadian Tom that Toronto did not have the best fireworks in the world.
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