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Watsons Bay, NSW
The sun is glistening all across the ocean. Kookaburras chorus. It could be summer. I enjoy the salmon sunset and for a moment forget about COVID making domestic violence escalate all across New South Wales. In Watsons Bay, I’ve noticed so many more fathers playing with their children. In parks, taking walks, flying kites, riding bikes, holding hands. I hope it is happening elsewhere. One happy outcome borne of collective anxiety, more time, and being housebound.
State borders are still closed, and for a moment it is suggested that doctors should decide when borders should open and close, rather than politicians. My piano children tell me sadly that they’re no longer allowed to have school choir practice, with singing banned to avoid infection. Our trip to the Torres Strait is on hold, probably until winter next year. It feels like a long time to wait. We listen to Beatles records to cheer us up.
The green and yellow ferries ply back and forth across choppy Sydney Harbour as we record take after take of our new song on piano and guitar. It has turned into something gospelly and doesn’t yet have a name. We take a break and I give the balcony pot plants that have multiplied since lockdown a drink. Hot pink and blood red geraniums flourish beside lilac flowering rosemary and trumpeting tangerine nasturtium. The Port Jackson fig my late grandfather rescued from the Prince Of Wales Hospital chimney in 1954 thrives in the sea air, its roots knotty and gnarled inside its terracotta pot, primed for an artist to notice.
Researchers at the University of Queensland are expanding human trials of a COVID-19 vaccine, and The World Health Organisation reports that global COVID cases pass 26 million. Australia is officially in recession.
The sun is glistening all across the ocean. Kookaburras chorus. It could be summer. I enjoy the salmon sunset and for a moment forget about COVID making domestic violence escalate all across New South Wales. In Watsons Bay, I’ve noticed so many more fathers playing with their children. In parks, taking walks, flying kites, riding bikes, holding hands. I hope it is happening elsewhere. One happy outcome borne of collective anxiety, more time, and being housebound.
State borders are still closed, and for a moment it is suggested that doctors should decide when borders should open and close, rather than politicians. My piano children tell me sadly that they’re no longer allowed to have school choir practice, with singing banned to avoid infection. Our trip to the Torres Strait is on hold, probably until winter next year. It feels like a long time to wait. We listen to Beatles records to cheer us up.
The green and yellow ferries ply back and forth across choppy Sydney Harbour as we record take after take of our new song on piano and guitar. It has turned into something gospelly and doesn’t yet have a name. We take a break and I give the balcony pot plants that have multiplied since lockdown a drink. Hot pink and blood red geraniums flourish beside lilac flowering rosemary and trumpeting tangerine nasturtium. The Port Jackson fig my late grandfather rescued from the Prince Of Wales Hospital chimney in 1954 thrives in the sea air, its roots knotty and gnarled inside its terracotta pot, primed for an artist to notice.
Researchers at the University of Queensland are expanding human trials of a COVID-19 vaccine, and The World Health Organisation reports that global COVID cases pass 26 million. Australia is officially in recession.