My neighbourhood. There isn’t just one word, feeling or image that defines all that it means to me. It’s both a physical home and an emotional retreat to return to from work, travels near and far, adventures good and bad.
It’s a little beach I can walk to and have a little think and a little pool where I can go for a dip to escape the heat.
It’s glamorous restaurants you can visit by seaplane but also down to earth cafes where friends of all ages (and species) meet to caffeinate and connect.
It’s modern mansions with manicured hedges but it’s also Art Deco with trees that have a will of their own.
It’s a stone’s throw on the train to Circular Quay and everywhere else a person who loves being a tourist in their own city could possibly want to visit but it’s also not much more than a scooter ride to important places like school and the shops.
At times my neighbourhood might seem impossibly glossy and impersonal but there is heart and warmth beneath all of this.
Halloween brings the neighbourhood together, as does our annual street fair.
You can walk down the road to eat lunch at a chic cafe on a Sunday or you could just as easily stay home pottering and attacking your wisteria with some clippers. You’re never short on things to do around here.
I love our jacaranda trees. They have a certain presence, whatever the season.
There’s art everywhere be it in carefully curated galleries or on the walls of humble homes a few streets away.
It’s that water and that light that make this place ‘my’ neighbourhood. They both restore me.
