Location: Manning Valley - Sydney
Date: March 2014

March 15, 2014. A collection of classic Jaguar cars from the 1950s. Images from newsgroups. Click here for the photo album.

March 5, 2014. Yesterday, I visited Sydney again to see the doc (he's actually a professor) about my progress. My gum situation is improving, albeit slowly, so I'm to continue the current medication and see him again in 6 months. See what I mean about slowly? I also mentioned my problem with shallow breathing and difficulty coughing up phlegm. He suspects I might have a lung infection, which is fine by me. Infections can be treated - and quickly. 

Upon arrival at Central Railway at 7am, the idea was to catch a tram to Glebe and walk down to the point for a photo shoot. But I wasn't feeling too well so I opted for a taxi. Even so, walking around Glebe Point was very strenuous. By the time I was due to visit my ex-neighbor for coffee, I was at the bottom of Ferry Road which is a pretty steep climb back up to Glebe Point Road. I figured maybe I could con someone into giving me a ride hehe, so I asked a bloke who had been chatting to a couple of builders nearby. When we got to the top of the hill, I conned him again and he drove me all the way to my neighbor's place (which was only a few blocks anyway). My Good Samaritan was a young fella who works for the local University - a property inspector.

I expected pangs of sadness at seeing my old house in Hegarty St after 23 years but no. That was then and this is now, and that distinction soon became very obvious. Jeremy, my ex-neighbor, had organized Helen, the new owner of my old house, to provide a guided tour. It was interesting but not sad. Various memories came flooding back, of course, but not sad memories, for which I was grateful. Helen and her husband have made several improvements to the house, which looks great. They have a baby and intend to live there for "a long, long time". They're both lawyers. I feel good about my old abode being "a family home".

Here's a pic of Hegarty St taken just after I first moved in 35 years ago. You'll see how it looks now in the photo shoot album linked below.

During the time I spent at Jeremy's house, and then during the tour of my old house, I felt strangely vulnerable and insecure. Although Hegarty St was my old stomping ground, I was no longer part of the scene all these years later. I was a foreigner in a situation to which I had no claim - in the company of people who had their own lives to live and their own daily agenda - far from home and all things familiar. To exacerbate the situation, I felt quite unwell.

It was an unexpected revelation. Over the years, I'd often reminisced about Hegarty St and my life back then, and wondered if things were better then than they are now. In some ways they were, but I don't miss them as much as I thought, and after yesterday's experience, I no longer have any longing to return to the same or similar situation. I'm content to be where I am and to have the future I expect to have.

For the first half of the Glebe Point shoot, I'd forgotten that the camera was still on manual focus, dammit, but as it happened the setting must have been on infinity so the pics turned out okay. In fact, the whole shoot was better than I expected. I've included almost all the pics in the photo album despite the sameness of various sequences - for anyone interested in the area, there are sufficient differences in composition to warrant the inclusion all shots. When I first arrived in Glebe in 1978, the place was pretty much derelict. Not any more! The influx of yuppies since the '80s has improved the streetscapes, while various developments have spruced up the foreshores. What was once a working-class area is now very much a jewel in inner-Sydney's crown. Click here for the photo album with explanatory captions.