Will never tire of the views over Elizabeth Bay from K's apartment. Always changing, always full of interest. As the date of this post shows, though, I have struggled to keep this blog going. Am now looking back - from the distance of London as well as in time - on my experiences in Sydney. It is still very hard to grasp what is so particular (both special and different) about this part of Australia compared to England.
It feels obvious - if a bit crass - that differences relate to the extraordinariness of the land and its toughness, to the eccentricities of the wildlife (weird types, many very loud and/or dangerous); and of course to the country's very specific history of colonisation, in its complex and dynamic patterns of exploitation and oppression, its suppression of indigenous peoples and its basis as a new nation via poor, white and previously marginalised - especially working class - groups.
This shows most immediately in the writers but also in those amazing painters like Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Brett Whiteley. In day-to-day life, harder to unpick.
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