Sime says

I viewed the invitation with trepidation. I wasn't to be a spare appendage at a wedding, but single at a 60th. I'm well versed at fronting up to events on my own. Call me Pat Malone but in reality many years of parachuting in between cosy couples and group conversations have hardened me up, on the outside at least. There is no alternative, walk right in or wilt like a wallflower. Knowing the calibre of the host, I knew his birthday bash would be a rip snorter of an event. And so it was. I had nothing to worry about, until it came to the dancing routine. It takes courage and a little amber liquid to loosen my limbs and discard diffidence. But things can get decidedly sticky on a dance floor: when to move, where to move, how to move, who to move with and when to move off. No sweat? Hardly. Women have no such dread. They flow onto the dance floor in a whimsical way. Completely absorbed, unaffected and free to shake, rattle and roll their beauty in a wonderful rhythm ...

It's a sad fact: I can't handle crickets. The svelte-legged little critters make my skin crawl. Summer's here and they're marching en masse into my house. Hairy Huntsmen spiders, sewer-dwelling roaches and beefy-looking beetles are a doddle to deal with in comparison to Jiminy cricket and his mates. Last week an interloper came down the hallway settled on the grandfather clock and began a jam session with father time. I put an end to Jimmy and the Crickets informal musical event by throwing a tea towel in his direction. This method was employed by my father who was a bit of a wuss when it came to removing an  orthopteran  from the house. Quivering at the thought of picking up the little blighter, a tea towel provided a buffer zone by enabling dad to bundle up Jiminy and set him free outside. One has to work quickly in order for a catch and release to be successful. Armed with a handful of tea towels and a kitchen broom as backup, I lobbed a lump of linen a...

I'm rolling in dough. Decades spent sniffing around Victoire patisserie, throwing money at Morpeth bakery and endless searches for Dr Allinson's infamous brown loaf, have forced me into trying my hand at the art of sourdough bread making. My mother had a love affair with a loaf of bread. Called Crushed Wheat, it was a frigid brown brick of wholemeal blandness. I endured childhood years of lunchtime envy as my cold beef on brown went head to head against my mates' mouthwatering slabs of butter and vegemite slapped between two soft layers of white bread. It was no match, Tip Top was the one. I've suffered from a rise and fall in emotion that is directly linked to the glutinous threads of clag-like dough stretching between my fingers. It's a sticky situation to be in, for the sense of anticipation an amateur baker feels when the flour turns sour and buns are removed from the oven is palpable. Making sourdough requires the crafting of a pre-ferment...

Playing chicken with a brush-turkey is a full-time job as I recently discovered. If birds of a feather flock together then you can't blame a single male brush-turkey for choosing my place to build his dream pad and shop for a bride. A large block of land, plenty of nest building material and water views provide the perfect canvas for him to strut his stuff. Last weekend, Mosman was open for inspection and one bold bird sporting a laterally flattened tail and a resplendent red and yellow fleshy collar resembling mayoral robes landed in my yard. My next door neighbour once owned a pest control business. He reverted to his then company's advertising slogan of "one flick and they're gone" and with a wave of his hand directed the megapode over the fence into my garden. Until this moment there was no cause for alarm as brush turkeys regularly passed through the neighbourhood. Things changed when I discovered that construction of the scrub turkey's nest w...

Leaving Italy and in desperate need of some clean clothing, I found myself strolling down Jermyn Street. There's nothing Aryan about it. It couldn't be more English; by its locality – in the centre of London – and by virtue of what it provides, access to high quality British artistry and craftsmanship. Shopping on this strip can be an intimidating experience. Dating back to 1664 when Charles II authorised Henry Jermyn, the Earl of St Albans, to develop the area it has flourished ever since and is home to the city's finest men's tailors, suppliers of leather goods and shirt makers. You need to have a purpose to shop on Jermyn Street. Enter a store, make a decision and don't look back. I know shopping, at least I thought I did. Captain Peacock swooped as soon as I stepped foot in his shop full of shirts.  He stopped short of asking the obvious question, "are you being served?" Instead, he politely enquired into my immediate needs and henceforth s...

7am and the ferry terminal at Genoa was near empty, except for a lone gunman standing at the customs' checkpoint. With thumbs hitched on his belt, the carabinieri sized me up through his cylindrically-shaped sunglasses as I marched towards him. "Bongiorno Bastia?" I enquired. The Sylvester Stallone look-alike momentarily moved his hand atop his pistol. Realising my incendiary words might have aggravated him, I quickly followed it up with some fluent English, "the ferry to Bastia you bastard, this way?", or words to that effect. "Si, terminale cinque" he replied. "No, terminala nove" (four) I said whilst pointing to the digital screen on the other side of the building that displayed the departure time and terminal number. Peeved for having questioned his authority, there was a momentary halt to proceedings. He was either going to shoot me or wave me through. After studying the board at length, he chose the latter option. I breezed...

On hands and knees and with my head under the bedside table I grappled with trying to plug in a timer switch into a power point. My tech-savvy father had accumulated a draw full of electronic gadgetry necessary to illuminate Sydney if needed, and in process switch on enough lights to deter thieves when one was away. With the job done and whilst rising from the floor, I came face to face with a sticker on the bottom of a blue plastic container. ' Rosemary Dean, date of cremation: 5 December,' it read. There she was, reduced to ashes, just five centimetres from my nose. Up until this point, I was in total control. My bag was packed and I was ready to head overseas. Cradling the container I squeezed it tightly against my chest. My stomach muscles tensed and a swell of emotion began to flow from Balmoral Beach. It rose quickly up Coronation Avenue, flooded down Frascatti lane, ran up the driveway and hit me fair in the face. My fingers dug into the sides of the lifeles...

Leaving the hills behind, I found myself at the Zoo as a Volunteer Keeper in the Australian native fauna division. Many years helping farming friends eradicate kangaroos from their properties had caught up with me. Once a fortnight, armed with a bucket, rake and shovel I entered the marsupials' domain. The job was a challenge: sweeping malteser-sized Skippy excreta onto a shovel and making it stay there without rolling off.  It was like an egg and spoon race as I attempted to deftly balance the bog and transfer it to a bin. Nine times out of ten the little turds would roll off the shovel, hit the beautifully raked ground where they would pick up speed and tumble downhill. It was a shit of job. Elsewhere, sanitary Sime fed carrlion to a screaming Tassie Devil called Pauline, had a kip in the nocturnal house and tried to dance with a Brolga. But it was a grizzly encounter with a Koala Bear named Darwin that truly left its mark. I wanted to call him Charles but decided o...

I bought it in the 90s, at a time when an offer to 'show one's etchings' might buy me a ticket to manhood. With a glamorous girlfriend on one arm and a glass of champagne in the other hand I purchased the painting by John Ogburn from a reputable gallery in Chippendale. I felt pretty chipper about it. The moment of madness had nothing to do with any kudos attached to acquiring artwork, for on this  occasion I was genuinely struck by the subject: the Australian landscape. Particularly country NSW and the wide-open spaces that spread themselves before you like a seductive mistress the moment you accelerate west from Lithgow. The urge to drive deeper into her heart hits me every time. Back in the gallery, my deviant mind transformed the perfectly framed hillocks hanging before me into a range of majestic buttocks cavorting in a luscious palette of sunburned shades. Pubic mounds of woodland intersecting steep gullies, a snaking river pushing agonisingly close to a V-sh...

I don't have a head for numbers, so walking into my local bank branch sends me into a cold sweat. You'd think that after stepping foot into this particular money pit for more than 45 years, that the tellers would tell everyone about my arrival, the manager might hand me gold ingots and interest rates would climb in expectation. Not so, for in 2018 this is one antsy place to be in. Just the other day, fed up with waiting and with an obvious want to attract attention, the fellow behind me in the queue exhaled in a fashion not too dissimilar to the way an elephant seal snorts hot fish breath into the air.  With the odour wafting over my shoulder I shuffled forward but was blocked by Mavis who had just strolled in, with her passbook, and taken up poll position in front of me. Up ahead at the money end of the queue, the manger – whilst on the phone to bank central – gave directives to the customer in front of him. Stymied at every angle, the customer left shaking his hea...

Weeks ago Qantas CEO Alan Joyce stood in front of a big bird and proclaimed it to be "da Queen of da skoies". He was referring to the 747 jumbo jet which will soon be retired from service. I beg to differ Alan for there is a bird that has ruled above Australia well before the monarchy first touched down. And I'm a major shareholder in its operation. There's nothing cheap about my bird –  she's more A380 than ezyjet. Her robust and stocky fuselage sprouts wings that lift and transport her bulk with ease. Flying daily non stop from lily pilly to veranda for more than 10 years, flights are on schedule and land the moment I step into the kitchen. I provide fuel for return fights in the form of raw chicken necks that are swallowed and stowed quicker than a flight attendant disarms doors and cross checks. Other domestic carriers do little to disrupt the flight path of this Australian icon. She is totally unflappable. Cheap and noisy miners do their best to del...

If the word eternity can span Sydney's iconic coat hanger, then the term integrity ought to have been emblazoned upon the chimney at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium on 21 April 2018. Wearing the same suit, shirt and tie that I donned some five months ago to farewell my mother, I found myself back at the godforsaken place;  The East Chapel, Northern Suburbs Crematorium. Yet strangely there was no wretched feeling in my bones or signs of dread when dealing with the dead. Instead, like wrapping oneself in a doona, by returning to this place of solemnity I felt that I was revisiting an old friend. Despite most of my family's 'old' friends having gone up in smoke at this very place,  there is a familiarity about the four chapels that I nickname the "crem". The older you are, the more visits you make. On this day the dear departed soul was my mother's rheumatologist Dr John Hassall, who first diagnosed her crippling arthritic condition in the 1980s. He al...

When was the last time Australians came together as one? Was it during the Queen’s first visit to Australia, the Mabo decision, winning the America’s Cup or Cathy Freeman claiming gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics perhaps?  A united front is too often blocked by division and dissent which are the drivers of debate. It begins on the roads as one travels to work, floats through the airwaves on talkback radio and carries on all day, every day in parliament. We can’t gain 100% agreement on anything, be it driving ability, climate change, republicanism, gay marriage, boat traffic, transport, toll roads, property development, even franking credits. It’s taken a game of cricket played by a few cheats to pull the national team of spectators together. And doesn’t it feel good. Not the resultant shame bestowed upon Australia by the act but the strength in numbers that has formed a tidal wave of like minds united in the demand for fair play. Cheating is just not cricket and if a...

Ball sports are my thing: marbles, mini golf, even pocket billiards. I'm pretty handy at games requiring reasonable hand-eye coordination. That is until my neighbour came to play. Gui Huong is his name. I call him the $8 million dollar man.  He earned the price tag after purchasing the house next door and with the deal done became the first neighbour of Asian extraction to share my picket fence. Prior to the grand poobah's arrival, his son Jamie or "Jaimheeee" had moved into the luxe pad.  Jamie studied in Australia and his command of the English language smoothed troubled waters that could have arisen when the South China Sea met Middle Harbour. When Jaime was absent  iTranslate dismantled the language barrier between myself and his father. There was not a word of cheeky Chinese coming from me and zero sino-Sydney slang from Gui Huong. Chinglish was replaced with wild gesticulation. It took just a few days before I was bailed up by a beaming Gui Huong in t...

Leaving the beach behind and with a fishing rod and bucket in hand I bush bashed my way upwards through pandanus palms, papyrus and thick woodland before entering a patch of grass rimmed by a raspy cliff. My secret fishing spot lay 70 metres below. Beginning the decent, I inched along like a limpet. The bucket cracked against the cliff face and the mushy contents of bread, squid and thawed prawns oozed through the base, creating a burley trail dribbling down my leg. My sunglasses fell from my head and plopped into the ocean. Safely back at sea level I caught sight of my quarry. Big and blue they were: Girella cyanea; an azure frenzy of fish that soon stripped bait and snapped my line with frustrating regularity. I caught two trophy-size beauties but lost a lot of tackle in the process and was determined to rescue the last hook snagged on a rock at the water’s edge. That’s when my world turned upside down. Picked up by a voluminous swell of seawater, within seconds I was oc...