Category Archives: Glenelg

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Mystery Pub: Getting Metaphysical at the Morphett Arms

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Glen Campbell gave us ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ and failed contestants of the ancient quiz show Sale of the Century were gifted a diamond encrusted stick pin by host Glenn Ridge. So what jewel does Glengowrie offer us?

Why, of course, the muscular boozer that is the Morphett Arms.

It was an act of bravery but also necessity. The pub is large, aggressively functional and a shrine for disciples of the Friday Meat Tray. None of these generally hold much appeal for Claire, but it’s seven minutes from home, and it would be a snobbish oversight to not swing by at least once as curious locals. Mystery Pub, as you well know, is underpinned by egalitarian principals and a dedication to exploration, geopolitics and post-modern art.

It’s not just a shameless monthly excuse to get on the gargle for an escapist hour.

The courtyard is a fine place to nurse, or if required, attack an end of week refreshment. The sole maple tree offers shade, beauty and a certain conspiratorial atmosphere, enhanced by us having the space almost entirely to ourselves.

There’s a decent range of tap beer but my Coopers XPA lacks punch. I suspect I’m the first to have one for the afternoon and so the keg’s still asleep. On occasion, being a beer pioneer comes at significant personal cost and if I weren’t of a buoyant mood this might have represented an existential crisis. Fatigued ale claims many a hapless victim. Don’t be next.

Claire’s white wine is white and winey in her etched and apparently complimentary glass.

We debrief our week and anticipate the next which with the Fringe now underway includes many Auslan interpreting gigs for Claire at the Holden Street Theatre and in town for various comedians such as Lloyd Langford, our funniest Welsh import. He could read from a phone book (explain this to the kids) and it’d be amusing.

I discuss going to Kapunda for work in a few days’ time and how this’ll be a euphoric treat despite the continuing sadness of the 2022 fire in Eringa. I love going home.

We sit happily at our elevated table and a few groups of post-work folk now drift in. Behind me on the large screen the cricket’s on in Delhi and local boy Travis Head comes and goes without me noticing. I’m probably more disappointed that the next Test has been moved from Dharamsala. It’s the most spectacular setting for a cricket ground with the snowy Himalayas looming just beyond the grandstands.

Our barkeep has a name badge with Rourke on it so when I return for round two of cuppage that’s what I call him. ‘Can I have a Pirate Life thanks, Rourke?’ His badge must be vaguely accurate as he replies, ‘Sure.’ My wife opts for a gin which is fair enough in mid-February. We have a funny conversation about Rourke, and the often-surprising helpfulness of a clearly visible nametag.

On our way to the motor, we duck into the front bar and the meat tray raffle’s away. Despite his microphone and a decent PA system, the spruiker’s a shouty chap and he barks, ‘That’s it for the pink tickets.’ I note a rise in the pub hub-bub, probably that of the singular discontent generated by the sudden pang of knowing you’re not going home with a pack of neck chops, chicken snags and lumpen rissoles.

Still, all blue ticketholders are alive and well. They might be in carnivorous luck yet.

Claire and I had also been in luck having just spent a lovely hour chatting beneath an unexpected maple tree. The tree is spectacular and although trees are not unknown in beer gardens, its green canopy made our occasion snug, and invested the visit with gratitude for our good fortune and mostly easy city and Glengowrie. At all of this I felt a tiny whiff of wonder.

This, my friends, is what Mystery Pub is really about.

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Patawalonga River parkrun

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The race director stands on a chair beneath a gum tree. Speaking into her microphone she itemises the logistics: safety, prams, dogs, coffee, the defibrillator.

Wait. A defibrillator? Oh.

I’m here for the 79th edition of the Patawalonga River parkrun. It’s my debut.

There are knots of folks in the shade. I meet Rohan. He lives just down the road from us and is a veteran of about seventy parkruns. He’s encouraging and affable in his San Francisco Giant cap. I’ve got on my Denver Broncos hat.

At 8am on the dot we’re away! Within moments the young ones and the lithe old ones have scampered. I keep left, as instructed by the race director.

It’s mercifully flat (running by a river helps with this), and vested volunteers take photos and offer quiet encouragement.

We push on past the treatment works (what a treat typing this noun group is) and towards Glenelg. Blokes pushing prams motor by me. In one pram the baby grasps a pear. I had a pear yesterday at work. It was a highlight.

A Jetstar plane approaches the runway, and I can already hear the silent screams of those passengers whose luggage is instead going to Broome or Wagga or Alice.

I pass Rohan and nod at him, ‘Keep going!’ He replies, ‘Good work, Mickey.’ When you’re new, you only need one friend.

It’s quiet and still on the river. Hardly any kayaks. Overhead, no seagulls. I am often surprised by this, especially on the beach. Maybe it’s the absence of nearby hot chip retailers. Attenborough could tell us why.

A big fella with industrial braces on both knees strides past. I’m reminded of Shaun Rehn in the 1997 preliminary final against the Bulldogs when he ripped off his supports and inspired the Crows to victory. I give him space.

Approaching the King Street bridge, I reflect on this moment, and hope it’s an expression of love for Claire, the boys, our shared future, myself. It’s an investment in a better me and a brightening horizon and unfolding joy. I then think about today’s Gawler races and the time-honoured Bung Fritz Cup. The race that stops a smallgoods-loving nation.

Our finish line at the baseball club swims into fuzzy view. I’ve been tailing a wiry, little bloke. He reminds me of Tommy Haffey but in a black shirt. I want to catch him. I dig in.

He powers on and gets there by a cricket pitch.

But I’m happy. I’ve finished the five kilometres in 28:34 and come 45th out of 110 runners.

I’d prepared a paragraph in which I described winning the Kapunda-born, left-arm decidedly pedestrian medium pace bowling, English teacher category for my age group. However, the record shows that I simply won my age group. I thank the other participants in the 55–59-year-old section. Both of you.

The parkrun is brilliant, and I’ll return.

Some of the participants go to a coffee shop but we’ve passport photos to sort. Italy beckons.

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To Alex and Max, on 2022

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Dear Alex and Max

So you’ve now had a year back together at the same school. I was excited about how you’d go and hopeful that you’d look after each other as needed. I’m confident you’ll remain protective of each other.

I know it’s sometimes boring but am glad that most days you both head off to school willingly, and once there, generally try your hardest. Of course, I’m impressed that you seem to enjoy and do well in English! Reading and writing are, as I keep telling you, the keys to every subject. You are fine users of language. I’m also pleased by your achievements in Company Bright Alex and by yours in HASS, Max.

In addition to this I’m thrilled that you show excellent humour, and this great skill applies to school, home and life in general. You also understand the power of story.

I’ve been rapt by your approach to your new job at Caruso’s Alex. Thriving in part-time work is important and gives you many wonderful opportunities and life skills. I’m sure you’ll also get a job when you’re able Max, and will find it of huge personal benefit. I look forward to this too. What if you got a job at Caruso’s too?

Another year highpoint was our Melbourne adventure. I enjoyed exploring the city with you and going to the footy. I also look forward to our New Year trip, this time to Victor, and swimming, playing beach cricket and American football. We must decide on a Lake Lap equivalent for each afternoon around 5pm. It’s a vital tradition!

I’m happy how both of you show commitment to exercise. Hoops and biking are your passions Max and it pleases me when I say, ‘How about you go down to the school and play basketball’ and you usually accept the challenge, and do it!

Alex, I’m delighted with your regular sessions at the gym. I’m glad we made this happen for you. I was pleased too, when you went for a run to the beach and back before school earlier this week. I hope you’ll both continue to appreciate that Glenelg North and the beach are a wonderful place to live. Another highlight of our year has been the Onkaparinga hikes, which are great as they give us a chance to enjoy nature too.

I’m happy that we’re going to the Strikers this season and hopefully, we’ll be regulars in the members at Adelaide Oval for a long time! As you demonstrated at the first match, one of the attractions of watching cricket is the chance it offers to have good conversations, and I liked how you both chatted the other night about all sorts of stuff like the NBA and school.

So, well done on your years and I’m proud of your achievements. I’m excited to see what 2023 brings for you both.

Love Dad.

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10,254 days

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Running is an invitation to think.

Setting off in Kurralta Park, six kilometres from the Colley Reserve rotunda gave me ample opportunity to dwell on my joyous present and varied and wide past.

Ambling towards Glenelg over the following 36 minutes I did just that.

I was paid up for my first City Bay fun run since 1994, and this alone represented a triumph. Although I was only entered in the six-kilometre event and not the full twelve I was keen to participate and prove things to myself. But a week out I suffered an avulsion fracture in my foot which is when a flake of bone attached to a ligament is pulled away from the joint.

Ouch.

I was disappointed and that this happened at our Port Elliot townhouse on my annual writing retreat dampened the celebratory mood. Slipping on the bottom rung of the darkened staircase following three generous glasses of shiraz, I knew I should’ve gone the merlot.

Shiraz can be shameless.

So, ever supportive and kind, Claire suggested I do the City Bay fun run when I’d recovered. Five weeks later, this morning at 11.50 by Anzac Highway, and across from Australia’s best K Mart (no, really) my lovely wife said, ‘3, 2, 1, go!’

Like Forrest Gump, I was RUNNING! It was no leisurely jog to the beach and back. It was my own private event with the attendant excitement and exhilarating occasion.

Heading down the Anzac Highway footpath past the homes and shops and pubs I felt deep gratitude (especially when I didn’t go in the execrable Highway Inn). I wondered about the groups of lads I passed ambling down to the Morphettville racecourse. An Indian man was then easing local council how to vote pamphlets into letterboxes outside a big block of cream units. He cheerfully ignored me.

A biker roared through the traffic, his chopper adorned with ghastly yet tremendous wood-panelling, and with his stereo blasting. Speakers installed on motorbikes is always noteworthy and just a little bit funny. I couldn’t identify the music due to the car noise but the funky, yet laconic bass suggested Talking Heads. Puffing along, I inwardly nodded approval.

I was making pretty good time. In 1994 during my last City Bay, when I was non-grey and non-chubby, I had on the Swatch watch I’d bought duty-free on the way to New Zealand’s Contiki Tour the previous summer. Being on the youthful side of thirty and boosted by adrenalin I ran my first six kilometres in 24 minutes! In 2022, I knew this was beyond me however I remembered to be kind to myself. As the Dalai Lama says, ‘Kindness is my religion.’ He knows a few things, our Dalai.

Today my pace was more leisurely, but I had much more for which to be grateful. There was a cooling breeze and cloudy sky as friendly company. Just by the racecourse I felt a wave of nostalgia for the faded, sometimes vexed previous decades and renewed appreciation for where I was at this exact moment.

Indeed, I have the three ingredients for happiness: something to do, something to look forward to, and most vitally, someone to love. Arriving at the next intersection I again got the run of the lights and scampering across (this might be a generous description) was now in Glenelg East.

It was going well, and my sense of joy was percolating nicely. He’s deeply flawed but as American Beauty‘s Lester Burnham says when he’s on the verge of physical reinvention: ‘But you know what? It’s never too late to get it back.’

With the grass of Colley Terrace beneath my Brooks running shoes I peered anxiously ahead at the rotunda. It appeared deserted and my bespoke City Bay fun run was nearly done.

All about me people were easing into their Saturday afternoons by the beach and for the first time in decades I’d easily run a reasonable distance. I hoped this would be a symbol of capacity, of happy future surprise and of the rich possibilities of life, well-contemplated and favourably executed.

My run complete I effected the rotunda stairs (mercifully this time without incident) and Claire was waving some fizzing sparklers, just for me.

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On Being Gentle

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Over the Adelaide Hills an orange pinkness stretches out into our sky. It bursts as a cathedral across the city.

Here, on the tiny yellow ribbon of sand we’re rotating deathlessly towards the sun and a Thursday dawn is upon us. The beach is ours alone and in coats and scarves and beanies we tramp north. Heading along by the regularly crashing waves, and into our promising days, we exchange ideas both small and transformational.

Are these vivid almost hallucinogenic sunrises and sunsets still caused by the Tongan volcanic eruption? Or given our seemingly heightened human catastrophe, is this nature’s reassurance that our problems are petty and of cosmic inconsequence?

On the sand there’s a scramble of human and dog prints like kid’s scribble. In the gathering light we wonder if these are the earthy reminders of those who’ve come before us this morning, or these fleeting impressions survived the night by escaping the high tide’s indifference.

It’s a great spot to visit as a dog. Some parade abound, heads proudly aloft with dribbly tennis balls wedged in mouth while others greet the water and each other. On the King Street bridge we later spy the much loved trio of Golden Retrievers. Their happiness is instructive. But today, the beach is quiet and we’re bathed in gentleness.

I can’t name a single Charlotte Church song but glancing at an article recently noted that her best advice is, ‘be gentle.’ It’s something I’ve heard over the years and it’s curious that saying this to myself in a Welsh lilt (she’s from Cardiff) I’ve finally vowed to allow it deeper governance. Unlike the mock-heroic inner forearm inscriptions of ‘Brayden’, ‘Jayden’ or ‘No Regerts’ I think ‘be gentle’ would make a good tattoo. Maybe not on your bum.

A Friday or two back my wife Claire and I went to the Gov to see Josh Pyke. It was a triumph and sitting by the open fire it was lounge room intimate. Paul Kelly is our finest storyteller, but there’s an argument that JP is our most accomplished and affecting musical poet.

He took us on a kindly tour of his celebrated catalogue and these songs are often fragile prayers. They promote gentleness. ‘The Lighthouse Song’ is an ode to the joyous notions of sacrifice to the other and mindfulness-

So we are moving to a lighthouse, you and I
While seas drown sailors, we’ll be locked up safe and dry
And we are moving to a lighthouse, you and I
Our beams will burn the clouds to beacons in the sky
And though our doors may knock and rattle in the wind
I’ll just hold you tight and we’ll not let those others in.

But at dawn with my wife Claire on our sweep of beach I thought of his new tune called, ‘A Town You’ve Never Been To.’ It’s a hymn of gratitude for his musical and poetic gifts, and a wish for his various personal and artistic loves to remain unbroken. It’s a quest for adventure and truth.

I think it’s also about wishing to be gentle.

So find a street that you’ve never been down
In a town that you’ve been to
And sing a song that you love for me

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Goodbye to a faithful friend

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In the end it was deceptively quick.

As should always happen in these situations, mercy prevailed. With no witness and limited ceremony I simply nodded briefly and acted swiftly.

Appropriately, it was in the grey light of Wednesday’s unremarkable dawn. A dawn that would be forgotten as soon as it was complete.

The symptoms revealed themselves late last week: feverish temperature; ungainly sweats, internal functioning becoming increasingly laboured. I wished that a simple solution were available. Experts were consulted and their chorus was clear and while sympathetic it was unanimous: a terminal prognosis.

Our relationship had endured for over a decade, and to my shame I admit that I took far more than I gave. I offered rare gratitude but demanded constantly. I heard no complaints.

Of course, I became grief-stricken when faced with the grim inevitability of the pending loss. As the sun struggled up in the east that morning my despair hurtled towards me. Why is it only when the final hour descends that we pause and show the kindness we’ve failed to display previously?

Yes, dear reader, my beer fridge was dead.

I turned off the power. The Southwark mugs that for long years had been kept crisply chilled in the freezer were now thawing in the feeble June sun.

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Saturday morning, on the Glenelg North esplanade

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The beach was a pale gold and wide.

A few lone swimmers bobbed in the shallows. It was well after 10am, the hour deemed as cut-off for unleashed hounds, but a few dogs bounded along the sand ahead of their owners unbothered by any petty council bylaws. A boat or two scattered atop the shimmering gulf.

Heading north the first one was an elderly woman on a bench. She was alone. She was immersed and had a coffee beside her. She was reading a romance novel. I was instantly buoyed and felt the associated glow of life lived well by the beach.

Nearly a kilometre later I reached the esplanade shelter we call the Mormon Hut. We know it as such because occasionally on the weekend it hosts a group from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who set up displays and stands of pamphlets. I’m unsure if their honeyed ways have netted many flies, but I do admire their optimism and enterprise in setting up churchly shop right by the sea where there’s plenty of pedestrian traffic. If not theological interest.

As I arrived at the MH this morning on the near bench was an aged man also by himself, deep in a book about Greece. It may have been in Greek. He seemed relaxed and at profound peace and was enjoying his Saturday morning of leisure.

With my hands on my hips I puffed and sweated and drew in some air and looked at the other bench. There’s only two tables in the MH. On the northern side was an elderly woman with an iced tea by her elbow. She was reading a large novel. In the minute I was there she didn’t look up.

Opposite her was a man who seemed to be well into his eighties. A walking stick leaned against his seat, diagonally. He had a white beard and was hunched over an equally huge novel. By his elbow was another iced tea. Like his wife he didn’t look up nor speak.

I was pleased to be in their company, momentarily.

Continuing to huff I gazed at the elderly readers, there by the calming ocean, on a mid-summer morning, living exquisitely and with singular application.

Four people by the beach on benches. All engaged by the written word. It was poetically simple. It was as if I, too, had spent a languid hour with a book. It gave me hope and reassurance.

When I got home all drenched and ridiculous I said to Claire, “I’ve just got another idea for our retirement…”

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To Max, on finishing primary school

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Dearest Max

You are about to have your last week at primary school. So, now’s a good time to think on what you’ve done and all that’s happened.

I recall your first Celebration Night at St Leonard’s. You were in Dennis’s class and with the sun slanting in above the gum trees you danced with your friends in the back row. What was the song called? Can you remember? It seems such a long time ago, but also as if it’d occurred just a few days back. You’ll find that time is weird like this and then it’ll start to accelerate like a Koenigsegg Agera RS (which we know is the world’s fastest production car).

I hope you enjoy Celebration Night and take a moment to think about this farewell and the many teachers who’ve helped you and the friends who’ve left and the friends who’ve stayed.

I’m also reflecting on Saturday mornings and soccer matches at school, in the Adelaide Hills and everywhere in between. It was sometimes freezing when everyone’s legs went blue through to torrential rain but we also had those cloudless, pale sun days. I loved your eagerness on the pitch with your team-mates and how you listened to the coaches and were keen to impress them. Every goal you scored was a life highlight for me but I particularly loved the one at Mitcham in 2020!

Tee-ball was summery fun and I lost count of the number of homeruns you whacked and how when fielding you sprinted like a leopard for struck balls across the crunchy grass. As the coach it was a challenge to get your team to sit in the batting line-up! Were you naughty then? Just a bit.

I’ve such special memories of the camp to Narnu Farm on Hindmarsh Island and especially the horse ride around the paddocks. I reckon you were on the old one named Pudding. Do you remember playing tennis? You were such a good sport and kept the game going with your kind leadership ensuring everyone had fun.

There were fifty kids on that trip and because you’d done everything with such unstoppable enthusiasm by 10pm you were the first asleep! Sitting in the kitchen with our coffee I remember Barry the Deputy Principal saying how he wasn’t shocked as you, “ran pretty hard most days” and I was delighted by this. I trust you’ll continue to live this way.

Next morning one of your friends said at breakfast that you were the first awake and with all the kids still in their sleeping bags you told everyone funny stories. This also made me smile.

My favourite achievement is your recent poem and debate on racism in footy. It was a task you took seriously and you worked so hard on this assignment. It was probably the most important piece of school work you’ve done and it showed your deep and growing skill with language. I reckon English and critical thinking will be at the centre of your success at Brighton and beyond school it’ll remain a big part of your life.

I was thrilled and not at all surprised when you earned an A+ for this task. No, you didn’t get or receive an A+, you deserved it.

Here’s some other writing you’ve done that I love. These are from your long “list of activities” which is still up on the kitchen cupboard-

1. Ride (anywhere)

8. Eat (food).

And in accordance with the tradition you began about once a month you announce on the fridge whiteboard

                The cordial is pre-made.

This is one of our great literary rituals and of social service too!

There’re many things I’ll miss as you finish at St Leonard’s but high on my list is driving past at lunch or recess when the playground is a surging sea of green shirts and hats and suddenly, just like that, I see you dashing about, your unmissable blonde locks bouncing along as you chase your friends or climb that tree just outside the front office or kick a footy.

So, primary school is over. I hope you’ll always look back upon this with deep affection and satisfaction. Enjoy your holidays.

I’m proud of you.

Love Dad

xx

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Glenelg v Norwood: Quarter Time in Chernobyl

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“If only people would label things,” announces Trev.

Instead of “Hello, how are you?” this is his customary greeting, and he lurches up to the table.

Pete also pulls out his chair in the Glenelg footy club bistro. We remove our masks. We have permission. We will be drinking and eating while seated. No vertical consumption. Just vigorous consumption. We all grew up in Kapunda.

Of course, straight away we speak of Chernobyl and Fukushima, both Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Afterall, we’re about to watch a battle between first and fifth on the SANFL ladder. Traditional rivals. Finals loom.

I mention an old friend who grew up in Poland and was at kindergarten during the Chernobyl incident in 1986. She remembers being told to not go out in the playground the week after the No.4 reactor went on the fritz. Trev wonders if they closed the kindy windows too. You know, as a precaution.

Lunch arrives and it’s excellent. The boys are on the Japanese beers. It may be a Fukushima tribute. I’m on Little Creatures pale ale. It’s not a Fremantle tribute. We’re all pleased we don’t have shares in the Pripyat pub, near the frozen Ferris wheel.

We claim our seats on the 50-metre arc, at the southern end, just in front of the Edward Rix Stand. Pete’s happy to be catching some Vitamin D. I’d never abbreviate this sentence to “catching some VD.” He and his family’s only just completed a fortnight of quarantine after his wife was caught in a “hotspot” at the Burnside hospital. When I was a boy Lennie’s, The Planet and Heaven on West Terrace were the only hotspots.

The footy’s underway. Norwood’s dominating and we’re chasing. Mercifully, the Kernahan End goals prove repellent and the quarter time score is like losing your Titanic boarding pass- a near disaster.

It’s cloudy over the hills, but sunny by the beach. We wonder if it’s hailing in Belair. Other Kapunda mates are at Williamstown in the Barossa as the Bombers try to sneak into the finals. Up there’s a very wet winter. Trev wonders if it’s more suited to submariners. I ask about folks eating a marinara sub. It’s probably bad news for all.

We speak about life with the virus like we’re in an Atwood novel. I mention that the night before we were supposed to go see the Whitlams at the Gov. A Sydney band, I maintain their best song’s titled “Melbourne” about a girl, “who calls her dog The Bear.” But the Eastern seaboard lockdown means they couldn’t come. Of course, if they were GWS, they could. We wonder about the injustice of this. Footy and live music are both in the bucket called entertainment.

There’s talk of Clare wineries such as Skillogalee which was just sold by our former PE teacher and footy coach.  Pete announces he’s embarking on a cabernet sauvignon self-education course. He’s become too comfortable with shiraz. Trev and I chorus, “Coonawarra.”

Pete mentions popular racehorse Morty, which shares a name with an identity back home in Kapunda. I check to see if it’s done well. It hasn’t. The Astrologist salutes at Flemington in race 8 for me. My horoscope told me it would.

It still looks dark and wet up in the Hills. We wonder how the footy’s going in Belair. Good day for back men we reckon. At half-time in Glenelg there’s kick and catch. There’s only been seven goals thus far and we wonder if the game’ll open up in the second half.

Trev played drums in some prominent Adelaide bands including Imelda’s Shoes. Still a great name, we agree. He was asked to audition for another band but declined as he was happy where he was. They were called The Superjesus.

A prodigious kick, Pete played full back for Kapunda in the 1987 grand final. They lost to Tanunda. The day started warm, but it was pouring by the final siren. I remember driving home from Freeling in a mate’s Torana. In the cassette deck was popular saxophonist Grover Washington’s Winelight and, “Just The Two Of Us” with Bill Withers on vocals. It features extensive use of steel drums, but we don’t mention this.

Inflicted with the same calamity as the AFL there’s loudspeaker music at the breaks and it’s too loud. A splash of plutonium in the footy club PA could be timely.

Then Pete talks of the trip he and his family made recently to Port Arthur and its tragic natural beauty and I speak of Arkaroola as a single-visit only destination to use a tourism term I just invented. Then we discuss the Prince of Wales pub back home going on the market for the first time in nearly forty years.

Like Hawthorn for most of this century, Glenelg find a way, somehow with a seven-goal last term burst. Former Tiger cub Richard Douglas kicks a late major for the Redlegs and this irritates some in the boisterous crowd. The Bays are now 15 and zip. It’s still looks grim over Belair, but Chernobyl oval’s in the longest winter of all.

We’ll all watch the footy together again soon.

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Beer Review: Coopers Australian IPA

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Coopers Brewery regularly releases new beers, and having just returned from our honeymoon, I learnt the latest is now with us, although like its predecessor, the Hazy IPA, it might vanish before spring arrives.

Given this ephemeral commercial habit I popped down the local last night to secure some and stuck them in the garage fridge with an exaggerated sense of expectation and bonhomie despite it being a Saturday.

To be fair both the Hazy and the Australian IPA are described as limited editions, just as the Session Ale was a few summers’ ago, and it sold well so Coopers added it to the permanent roster before changing its handle to the slightly inelegant and vocally challenging Pacific Pale Ale. This is my beer of choice when at the Broady, but I ask for a Session because the extra time taken to say its name in full is drinking/ chatting/ beer garden time wasted. And life is short.

Like all beers from the house of Coopers it looks great in my Southwark mug on the patio despite the ridiculous context of an early afternoon football match featuring the Adelaide Crows during which they kicked fifteen goals straight in just over a half and then couldn’t register a solitary major in the final quarter meaning, of course, they lost to the Evil Empire that is Hawthorn whom I’m informed, don’t even like ale.

The beer is cloudy and a fetching straw hue which speaks of autumnal sun and Vampire Weekend and lighting a Sunday night fire under the verandah. At time of writing I’m confident all of these joys will happen today!

Hops remain a matter of poetic mystery for your correspondent, and the Australian IPA uses Eclipse and Vic Secret, and I’d like to volunteer to name a few types of hops. Old mate Fats long insisted that if he ever bought an eighteen wheeler, he’d call it Sandy’s Desire, not that he knew any particular Sandy, or even wished to, he just thought it suited the image his trucking empire may have needed in its genesis. I wonder if Slim Dusty ever recorded a song called Sandy’s Desire. I hope so.

Early 1990’s horror movie Black Crow aside, I don’t think Coopers has offered up a bad beer, and my first sips of this young ‘un continue the trend. It’s arresting, and has pleasant, but not aggressive citrus notes as expected of an IPA. At 6.5% it’s not one to get overly excited with at a long BBQ with members of your wife’s esteemed family (editor: take careful note mine author).

As this Anzac Day drifts towards evening I found it a fun and lively drink although like the ancient Romans and Byzantines I prefer the Coopers triumvirate of Sparkling Ale, Pale Ale, and on the odd wintry occasion, when in most excellent company, a Best Extra Stout.

So while Coopers of Adelaide has released an Australian India Pale Ale, I wonder if, say, in Dharamshala, a local brewer is about to set boisterous sail with an Indian Australia Pale Ale? In this era when cultural and gastronomic boundaries have effectively disappeared, and new blends are expanding like gaseous galaxies I reckon I could be right.

But here by the cooling beach it’s a gentle Sunday and this is a complex hypothetical, so I’ll think about it tomorrow.

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Another Good Friday in Glenelg

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Thrice weekly I cross the river at the King Street Bridge, but today I turn left and jog along the Patawalonga’s bank past the boat haven. It’s already escalating from warm to hot, and the sky is cloudless with that autumn-in-Adelaide vibrancy and healthfulness. Sun-smart, I’m wearing my Glenelg 2019 Premiers cap, and this sets an expectant tone given the Tigers’ season opener later against Westies. The boys and I are walking down for the opening bounce.

Passing the former Buffalo site, home for decades to a full-sized replica of the ship that brought free settlers to the colony, it was also a family restaurant and in its nautical dining room I once heard a kid say, “This is the best buffalo restaurant I’ve ever been to.” The ship is now gone and makes the location less cluttered, replaced by welcome light and space and hope.

Exiting Wigley Reserve I pick my way along to Holdfast Promenade and the ocean which always surprises me by being right there, sparkling and benevolent this morning and, for a kid from parched Kapunda, a repository of awe.

There’s a fluid, manic blanket of kids at the Glenelg Foreshore Playspace, climbing and jumping and yelling while their caffeinated parents watch, judging when to intervene and get the offspring home before the final set of tears abbreviates the excursion and taints everyone’s morning. Peering into Moseley Square, all palm trees and swirling pavers, it presents as the village centrepiece, drenched in Californian hues and optimism.

The old jetty sits quietly, this truncated version (215 metres compared to the original’s 381) built in 1969, and somewhat utilitarian with its asphalt surface. It’s unlike the creaking, kindly wooden piers of coastal towns, but as my former colleague/ poet John Malone once wrote, jetties are an umbilical cord to the vast ocean.

Pushing my way through the South Esplanade there’s a paddle boarder seemingly becalmed in the shallows, contemplating a recommencement of her moderate early-Easter movement across the polished water-top. About me are streams of young mums with prams, and octogenarians on sea-facing benches trading fuzzy names, aiming to make and remake connections among their ever-closing circles.

Just before the Broadway kiosk the green park narrows into a gentle headland. I hear the cool room buzzing with vague menace, but the breakfasters’ chat hovers above it, and the cafe is bursting with our shared fortune and eggs Florentine and holiday cheer and pancakes with berry coulis and ice-cream.

Leaving the beach I now turn left up Broadway past the silent homes and a freshly-cleared block, mounds of sand waiting to again become submerged beneath concrete foundations. The foot traffic instantly eases and my ambling way is mostly unimpeded by dogs and bright clots of purposeful, aged ramblers.

There’s a prosperous row of businesses (florist, organic store etc) at the start of my final block. I glance in the butcher shop window and think of Dennis, the sociable proprietor who began as an apprentice, and later headed up a Melbourne franchise with a string of fitness centres before returning to his first love. Reflecting upon gyms compared to butchery he once told me, “The difference was the meat twitched instead of staying still.”

Yesterday afternoon to mark the beginning of many enchanted things, Claire and I went to the Broady beer garden for two happy hour drinks each- pints of Coopers’ Pacific Pale Ale (habit and brevity mean I still call it Session Ale) and crisp glasses of house white, and elected to leave the car overnight on Hastings Street.

I see it waiting for me now in the gilded sunlight.

2

Sausage Roll Review: Skala, West Beach

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“I’m going to that bakery in West Beach to get a sausage roll. I’ve been ignoring eating and writing about sausage rolls for too long,” I said over the phone to Claire, “And that’s a sad sentence, right there.”

Hyperbolic exclamations aside, it was time for a sausage roll, and so I drove northward turning as the airport, or rather, the great, dry plains surrounding it drifted into view. I went past Beau’s Pet Hotel, or as I call it Beau’s Hideously Expensive Kennels for Aspirational Types and their Designer Accessories. Pulling in at the bakery I could see a sliver of sea next to the surf club.

Inside was busy with a range of punters. The wall behind the counter was gleaming and chrome. Shuffling forwards to place my order I peered in the warmer. This is always a moment of muted excitement when I glance in at the racks of baked goods although I don’t know what I expect to see beyond what I’ve seen hundreds of times before. Maybe some hybrid, Frankenstein’s monster in which the delirious, or merely creative baker has made a pasty/pizza/quiche/hot dog horror story that’ll end up in The Modern Museum of Odd Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota should it ever be built.

Is Skala a three-piece punk band? A 2yo filly with claims in the Golden Slipper?

I pause at the section labelled “Meat Pies” or “Pies” as I call them. You should too. But I return to my original decision and get a sausage roll.

At the sole red table outside I note how heavy my lunch is. It reminds me of former South African cricketer Lance Klusener and his monstrosity of a bat, both nicknamed SS Zulu. My sausage roll must be of equal size and weight to the handle of SS Zulu.

The pastry is secondary to the innards and this is appropriate while the meat is subtly flavoursome. West Beach Road is divided by a strip on which stretch a laconic row of palm trees while I can see the neighbouring apartments are plastered with stucco, all summery and promising. Others are Spanish Mission in style and this gives the suburb a Southern California veneer. If Jeffrey Lebowski drove past in a 1973 Ford Gran Torino, we could be in Venice Beach.

What my lunch lacks in elegance it aggregates in substance, and of course, we’re talking about sausage rolls here. If you want fine dining you best swing by L’Enclume in Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands.

Sausage Roll in White Bag on Red Wooden Table c.2021 (From the artist’s, oh shut up)

2

To Alex, on finishing primary school

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Dearest Alex

All of a sudden you’re about to start your final week of primary school! Over these years you’ve grown and learnt so much about the world and yourself. I want to tell you how proud I am of you.

You’re interested in the things around you and this constant curiosity is, and will be, a great asset. I’m sure it’ll help as you move through high school, and I like that you’ve been inquisitive about the following: Egypt, Mad as Hell, climbing Mount Everest with your friend Jan, using your bare hands (along with Max) to catch imaginary catfish at the bottom of the Valley Park pool just like Teddy from Mudcats, our adventure heroes in Bear Grylls and Russell Coight, cricket, the layout of your bedroom, and let’s not forget your developing if secret love for Vampire Weekend.

I like how you try so many activities and give your best to these. It’s also encouraging that when things don’t go so well that you’re able to accept this and look ahead. This resilience will help you as you move through secondary school and its challenges.

I’m pleased that you’ve taken up volleyball. It’s a great game and I can see that it’s given you much. That you’re in the state special talent program makes me happy as this means you’ll learn more about the skills and yourself. I hope it’ll be a sport you’ll enjoy for many, many years.

As someone who loves traditions it pleases me how you value these too such as watching the AFL grand final in The Taminga, sitting in the same spot on the grass at Glenelg matches and playing the car guessing game every day at 4pm as we do a slow lap of Lake Bonney. These rituals tell me that you value people and experiences and fun.

I know that you’ll make the most of your last few days at St Leonards and the celebrations at school and the surf club. It gladdens me that you understand how important these times are and especially appreciate being with your friends. Knowing where you are at a particular moment in life is important. So, take some photos and take your time to be polite and enthusiastic and grateful.

You’ll soon be at Brighton and in Year 8 and I know you’re going to do very well. Before then enjoy yourself and the summer ahead. I’m so proud of you. Signing off I’m sure you want to read these words from our old friend

I gained most of my vast knowledge of the outback from my father Russell Coight Snr, who taught me everything I know before he died from a combination of a self-inflicted axe wound, sunstroke, and snake-bite.

Love Dad

Xx

December 2020

2

First Swim

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Spring’s swinging wildness has been more ridiculous this year. Rain, wind, crazed dips and leaps in temperature, and one Friday morning atop Mount Lofty, even snow. Yesterday the sun was ferocious and the boys and I steered for the beach late afternoon.

The season’s opening swim is like many other entrances: the theatre of the first ball of the Boxing Day Test, the joy of that initial barbeque (ed: do these ever actually stop?) and the elongated summery, “Howwwwwwwww” at the start of Sherbet’s “Howzat.”

All suggest much about what hopefully follows across the toasty, meandering months. Days which recline and school holidays which drift. Cricket on a big screen and then beyond the screen door, out the back, on the lawn, brown patches witness to brotherly bowling and batting.

Cooled by its Arctic origins, the water at once enlivens and connects us. We throw a ball about our bouncing triangle- Alex, me, Max, me, Alex, me, Max, me- and this repetition functions as worship.

Suddenly, a fin.

Curved, momentary, kindly.

It pushes up, again, and we peer at its periscope. Dolphin. It surfaces once more before disappearing for good, its submarine progress beneath the twinkling water.

Later at home a twilight storm of white sheets and rattles and dog-scaring booms and our towels flap like bright ghouls on the clothesline.

In the morning I gather them up from the lawn.

2

48 Hours in Glenelg

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Pulling up at the Broadway pub on Friday afternoon Claire remarked on how atypically easy our drive had been from the city to the beach. So much so that the car’s clock displayed our triumphant arrival as –

4.27pm.

This, of course, scientists will gladly tell you is the optimal afternoon pub starting time, at least in the southern hemisphere. Locating a cosy table in the beer garden we let an hour drift away and all was providential in our world.

*

Saturday our local footy team the Glenelg Tigers were hosting a twilight match and the boys and I headed down. Sitting on the eastern side the late winter sun (now, we all acknowledge that spring only commences after the equinox on either September 21 or 22, don’t we?) poured honeyed light across the grass, the sky and us.

As is customary Alex, Max and their mates watched minimal minutes of the match, their attention taken by hot chips, each other and roaming about the oval.

Glenelg skipped away early and kept West Adelaide subservient throughout, and it was a spectacular afternoon. The fresh air and stroll did us all some good.

*

Once each winter month we set our fire bucket going with some red gum and spend a glowing evening on the patio. Claire struck a match as we made our way home from the footy and we enjoyed a few hours in the crackling warmth.

Games give the night some diverting structure and we engaged in Family Feud which is based upon the eponymous TV show. One night I flicked on the box and caught this question, just before the show was axed. This may have been the question that finished it off, but I still can’t decide if it’s towering genius or beyond moronic. We surveyed our studio audience and got their top 100 responses to this:

Name something a spider might think about?

Saturday night I read a question for Claire and Alex that went:

Name a calorie-burning exercise?

Claire and Alex called out running and cycling and others but couldn’t get the final reply which had seven responses. There was much guessing and frustration. Remember the question was:

Name a calorie-burning exercise?

Coming from the country that bought us Sco Mo and Warney’s autobiography called My Autobiography and XXXX Gold (at best a bronze product) the fourth reply was, you guessed it, exercise.

*

Sunday dawned as Father’s Day and we had Mum and Dad and my sister’s family over for a BBQ. It was sunny and warm and gentle. We ate lamb and chicken and beef. We had tossed salad and Thai noodle salad and red wine from McLaren Vale and the Barossa.

We spoke of renovations and footy and holidays. We then had Mum’s bread and butter pudding which may have had its origins in poverty but is now emblematic of comfort. The day was affirming and then it became late afternoon and with waving and tooting that was it.

It had been a glorious 48 hours in Glenelg.