Category Archives: people and places

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Security! Security! Trouble at Mystery Pub

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‘I think they’re Russian mafia,’ I suggest, glancing again over at the table behind us.

Claire disagrees. ‘The accent’s not right. Could be Italian?’

There’s four huddled together in the bistro and the alpha male is lecturing incessantly. The other man nods, as do the two women. They’re youngish and it only encourages him. I say to Claire, ‘If it’s Italian you could probably understand it.’

‘True. No, I can’t. It could be Spanish.’

We agree that it’s likely Español and return to the blustery afternoon outside. White caps push onto the clean sand and the balcony’s blue and red flags are rippling.

Claire’s picked a close venue but a surprising one. The Somerton Bar and Bistro sits atop the surf lifesaving club. It’s happy hour and my James Squire One Fifty Lashes pale ale is decent although I’m not as enthusiastic about it as I was a decade ago. My wife’s white is affable. Both are only $5 each.

Down on the esplanade there’s a trickle of traffic. Some are lone walkers; others have dogs. From the south a woman in black leisure gear bursts into view, moving with pace. Just as suddenly, she stops. I’m unsure if she’s run ten miles, or ten steps.

Surveying the coast with her year 12 Geography lens, Claire considers. ‘There’s less visual pollution here at Somerton Park. No buoys, poles, lights.’

We’re often at Glenelg North and this provides a crowded, messy vista with the groyne running out by the marina and like Venice’s Grand Canal, various channel markers jut out of the ocean. For the purists these human interventions might ruin the aesthetic. I nod agreement at Claire like I probably did in year 12 Geography with Ms. Bogle down in the Matric Centre.

Our Spanish neighbours are still with us, and the alpha male continues to talk at a clip like an Andalusian dancing horse might do in a fever dream. He must be sharing hugely vital information, sensitive data, gripping intelligence. His colleagues constantly nod like they’re committing every word to memory.

I amuse myself by thinking he’s the type of swarthy tourist who gets collared on Border Security for masterminding a massive drug operation. But in truth he’s probably a photocopier technician boring his colleagues rigid with an unbearable address on toner and ink cartridges and paper jams.

And Claire’s back with round dos! And she has chips (crisps for those from Blighty). And as has been my life habit I either eat none or as many as my greedy mitts can grab. Like a good punk rock song, the bag’s done in about a hundred seconds.

A clot of aggrieved, frowning diners suddenly looms over me.

The haggard, dirty blonde barks at me as if I’ve done something unspeakable in her cheap handbag. ‘You’re at our table.’ A foul crime. It’s not the Spaniards but a fresh crowd. I’m startled. Just like a pushy mum volunteering at Brayden and Jayden’s Sport Day as a raker at the long jump pit she continues.

‘This is table number four. We’ve booked it.’ She’s right. I’ve breached her territory and am now in my own hellish episode of Border Security and shit doesn’t appear good. I’ve no plausible story and my passport seems fake. In a back room, someone could be slipping on a glove with my name on it.

Eyes lowered, I scarper shamefully across to our correct table without knocking over chairs or spilling beverages.

Deep breaths taken, we speak of upcoming weekends away, theatre visits and Christmas. Heading to the stairs and the car, I should’ve nodded to the Spanish monologuist and said, ‘Feliz Navidad.’

But he was busy.

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Under the Blonde Light by a Hahndorf Bakery

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Running up the main street, noting the folk sat outside various coffee shops, I then veer about by Otto’s Bakery.

An American was explaining something to a passive local sitting and eating toast about four seats away. He seemed confident and had a rich voice like he had, or thought he should have, his own podcast. Aproned people were wiping down the tables outside both pubs leaving glistening trails of cleanliness ready for the lunchtime slop of unwieldy German steins.

The once-drowsy slumber of the evening had vanished, giving way to the bustling dawn of a Tuesday.

Amidst this tumbling tableau a woman passed me going the other way along the footpath. In a whirl of forceful purpose, she was striding fast but reading her book as she went. It was a rare sight, a fusion of worlds, an embodiment of the allure of a solitary journey amidst the written word.

I love early mornings.

Some are taken in nature like Saturday on parkrun dissecting the pine forest by the Myponga Reservoir and mornings like today as a town awakes and smiling hospitality staff scurry about. I run through it all.

Turning by the Otto’s bakery at the top of the street, suddenly a golden, soft light was behind me and bathed the scene with warmth that carried profound love and unornamented joy and you, Claire. It was a welcome alchemy, and a transcendent instant.

In that moment, I was spirited away across continents, to Italy, to a morning much like this one, perhaps in Monterosso on the Cinque Terre. Meandering about with a coffee along narrow lanes we looked at those charming shops and Mediterranean homes and funny little three-wheeled utes for which I found curious affection.

Those unsophisticated amblings during which we spoke of our surroundings and the day ahead and sometimes directed our chat back home. And you were the only person I knew in that entire country, that foreign soaring land, and I wondered how younger me would have been astonished and surprised but grateful beyond expression.

One day soon Claire we’ll be in Hahndorf, and in a minor pilgrimage I’d like to point out the spot by Otto’s Bakery where Italy, you and the remarkable gift that is each day came together in a singular, luminous moment.

Scampering back that bright second metamorphosed to a meditation, and then a prayer offering thanks for all that’s transpired and all that’s to be.

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Mystery Pub: Viva Las Vegas – The Peninsula, Taperoo

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Claire and I are back in the nation of Le Fevre at the accurately labelled Peninsula Hotel. Motoring there proved simple as we accessed the Northern and Port River Expressways with the metaphorical Friday breeze in our hair.

Taking in the hotel visage, I’m smitten as the 2019 renovations have aspired to a Vintage Vegas aesthetic. This evokes iconic buildings such as Circus Circus, the Tropicana, and the Flamingo.

It’s a genuine point of difference as both outside and in are devoid entirely of Port football iconography. It’s brazenly decontextualized and if you wish to drink up homegrown sporting nostalgia, there’s a dozen nearby pubs in which you can do this until you’re silly as a wheel.

This is an architectural delight and midcentury Americana tribute. With a rhetorical front and conventional behind, the Peninsula adopts the Stardust Showroom model of being a ‘decorated shed.’ It presents as a portal to an immersive world.

Most striking are the bright greens, pinks, reds, and blues on the external and internal windows. Lighting and colour are often poorly done by interior designers, so this sets an enticing tone and suggests risk and adventure and ageless excitement.

All in downtown Taperoo.

Vegas motels are styled as pleasure zones like the Alhambra, Disneyland, and Xanadu while the famous gambling strip is also neon in the Atomic Age and uses Miami Moroccan visuals. I mention to Claire that according to my reading, Vegas is situated in an ‘agoraphobic auto-scaled desert.’

But that’s enough psychosexual geography.

*

5pm can be a curious, twilight time to descend upon a pub. The lunch and function crowd have (mostly) long left and omitting Queensland pensioners, it’s too early for those seeking dinner. Office types are still pretending to write outcomes-driven emails. But we’ve arrived and the emptiness aids critical appraisal and having the bar to ourselves is also helpful for conversation.

Like racehorses and heavy metal bands, modern beverages are prone to enchanting names that overpromise and underdeliver.

Claire requisitions a Shy Pig Sauvignon Blanc while I go for a local beer in the Big Shed Peninsula Proud. It’s a hazy pale ale, brewed in the neighbouring province of Royal Park. Both drinks deliver and my pint is hoppy and aromatic and pokes me in a late afternoon kinda way.

The movie set-like Peninsula isn’t an inexpressive cavern or processing plant but rather a place promising veiled and tempting nooks. Taking up residency we examine our week and encouraged by the setting, talk shifts naturally to the Rat Pack and the Chapel of Love and Elvis.

We consider visiting Vegas. Claire says, ‘I’d love to go. You’ve been there, right?’

Queue my Vegas blackjack story. I reply. ‘Yes, you know!’

Claire summarises neatly if a little eagerly. ‘That’s when you went to a casino at midnight and got to bed at 8am? When you were still winning at dawn and then gave all your money back?’

Ouch.

‘Correct,’ I affirm before offering a meek defence. ‘It was such good fun.’ I interrupt with an idea. ‘A trip there would have to include the Grand Canyon. It’s easy the best thing I’ve seen on the planet.’

Claire doesn’t say, ‘Make sure in Vegas we get a steak and Caesar salad.’

Returning barwards for our second and final refreshments, I note that the busiest section of the pub is the gaming room complete with carnivorous pokies.

But a picturesque, serene light streams in across our table and unlike the optical and aural assault of Vegas, it’s quiet and lounge standards from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin drift through the languid interior like smoke.

And now we’re a very long way from Port Adelaide. Maybe that’s the seductive trick of the Peninsula: the escapism, the effortless time travel, the mirage.

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2023 Grand Final: A Fighting Fury

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From the top deck of the Sir Edwin Smith Stand I see the scoreboard flags dancing in the breeze. It’s a bright Sunday for the season’s climax and I reckon three or four goals would capitalise on Max Proud winning the toss.

My teenaged son Alex and his mates are with me and during the footy enjoy just one meal. It begins before the opening bounce and in Henry the Eighth style, is still going in the car as we drive home along Anzac Highway.

Both sides exhibit what KG might describe as ‘exceptionally ferocious tackling’ and after eight lengthy minutes a shrewd Lachie Hosie snap in the pocket gets the Tigers away. With his deadly ability to pounce and attack he’s the human form of our mascot.

Cole Gerloff begins brightly and his major from just inside fifty makes the boys roar between cheeseburger bites. It’s a balmy afternoon and Oval management has the Big Ass fans (it’s true, look ‘em up) turning in all the stands.

Then a classically laconic kick from the Ken Farmer Medallist adds another goal. Minus the bloodbaths, ironic dialogue and 1970’s soundtrack, it’s a start that Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino could’ve written for Glenelg.

In the second term Sturt menaces and this continues all afternoon. In the eighth minute they goal and I’m reminded of the 2019 decider when former grand final gluttons, Port, took until just before half time to register their opening major. I don’t ponder this as I want to avoid notifying karma.

Luke Reynolds converts an opportunistic snap and then from the Chappell Stand boundary Corey Lyons slots one magnificently. There’s a healthy crowd of 33,000 and some compulsory rowdiness is already gurgling from the Scoreboard bar. The siren concludes the first half with our lead just short of five goals.

With the psychological if not fiscal comfort of a bucket of chips I prepare myself for Sturt’s inevitable surge. The boys take a break from their eating festival to wolf something else. I ask, ‘Did any of you have breakfast?’ In chorus they reply, ‘Nup.’

Beginning quarter number three for the Blues Matthews kicks one from mid-air. Then they get another. I fidget in my chair. Across halfback Glenelg has been terrifically resolute with the captain marshalling his lieutenants in his composed and visionary way. The umpiring has been excellent thus far.

Sturt now gets a third straight and the surge is on. Suddenly it’s quiet in the jungle. Too quiet. I try not to think about the Double Blues one-point victory over Port in the 2017 grand final.

Then Hosie gets his fifth to restore order and faith. And then he kicks number six. The margin is also six goals. How on earth did the Roos not want him? I say a silent prayer of thanks to North Melbourne for sending Hosie home. With a combined nine goals it’s a pulsating quarter that does justice to the notion of the Premiership Quarter but Sturt is unable to erode our lead.

For the final term the arena is characterised by lengthening shadows and lengthening beer queues. It’s a tussle and we hold firm. The Burley footy is misbehaving for Sturt and in the tricky wind they register four consecutive points before a goal to their speedster in Frederick.

But it’s already ten minutes in. Our defence is superb with smothers aplenty and unrelenting pressure acts to thwart the men from Unley. As KG probably never said, ‘The cruel, uncaring clock is now their enemy.’

I see some Blues scarves easing down the stairs of the Sir Edwin Smith Stand. A mate texts to announce that ‘the Tigers have done it!’ I can’t relax. Not yet. The ball spends long, agonising minutes at the wrong end. Like a constipated mathematician without a pencil, we can’t work it out. Then it finally pings forward and Matty Allen seizes the ball, swings onto his left and it’s home.

The siren. ‘Tigerland’ blasts out across the arena. Still hoovering up food, the boys and I stroll out into the jubilant afternoon.

It’s been a joyous, affirming season. We’re premiers!

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City Bay fun run: Singapore Sharks, snags and spirituality spruikers

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Support vehicle #2 takes a wide, languid arc and then halts in the Kurralta Park loading bay.

It probably says many grim things about late-capitalism that my six-kilometre leg of Adelaide’s City Bay fun run begins at an unsound cathedral of shallow greed and deep despair, a shopping centre.

Claire takes a photo of me in my safety pinned, microchipped race bib. With a kiss and a wish for good luck, off I trot.

There’s pythonic toilet queues about the car park. ‘Mambo No.5’ booms from the sound system and it’s vague fun although I prefer my breakfast soundtrack with its highlight being the song once described as the most beautiful sung in English, ‘Waterloo Sunset.’

The event announcer, possibly a young baritone derostered from Nova FM, informs us that the first of the 12k runners is approaching so I make my way to Anzac Highway’s median strip. Peering cityward, a cluster of athletes glides past. These are Collingwood six-footers, trim as gazelles, erect of carriage and with eyes set to the middle distance. It’s impressive.

I head to the starting chute and do a few stretches. As a key sponsor the announcer invites the Sunday Mail editor Paul ‘Ralphy’ Ashenden to the mike to say a few words. He’s an old Kimba and Kapunda boy and I strain to hear him but it’s too noisy. I’m sure he was terrific.

A countdown follows before bang! As Bruce often said in his distinctive near growl at the start of an Olympic race, ‘Away.’

As it’s uncluttered, I veer over and slip into the road’s cycling lane and soon we’ve all space to find our rhythms. It’s warm for September and I recall Claire urging me to have fun. But pushing along, I’m convinced this is largely retrospective. Like parenting and eating tofu.

Glenelg seems some distance yet but there’s bunches of brightly yelling spectators. My eye’s taken by a sign. Held by a wide-eyed type, it proclaims with conviction-

King Jesus reigns.

I imagine a runner hollering to our Christian converter every minute, ‘Yes, He might but Port needed Him last night!’ So, I don’t bother to also comment.

To my left I spy some uniformed staff at a long table offering free ice blocks, water and encouragement. Ha! A real estate agency! However, their goodwill could be desolate marketing to the foolish. Ignoring their saccharine enticements, I press on.

Just down the highway’s another man with late 90’s Scott Hicks hair- all lank and grey and desperately arty. He has a megaphone and extends broad and amplified inspiration. I’m touched but wait, I then hear him rambling on. He says, ‘Vote No in the referendum. Don’t be deceived. It’s what Jesus wants.’

Oh.

With a kilometre to go I’m running hard as I turn right onto Jetty Road. A fellow runner gets the wobbles and lurches over to the gutter. Swerving to his aid, a mate puts an arm around him. He’s fine.

I stride through the finish line. Meeting Claire, a kindly stranger takes our photo. Spotting my Singapore Sharks shirt another participant comes over and tells us he ran out for Penang. He then asks if I played footy in Asia to which I should’ve replied like this.

After I was maliciously delisted by The Crows I fled to an Indonesian cave and survived on bitter leaves and surprised insects. Then Buddha appeared and told me to voluntarily reincarnate by joining the Singapore Sharks. Accordingly, I became that most enlightened of earthly creatures, a half-back flanker.

But instead, I said, ‘No, I got this shirt because I helped to coach my boys.’

Strolling about the village on Colley Reserve we eat some fruit and those most wicked, yet life-affirming of delicacies: barbequed sausages on white bread. A giant inflatable beer bottle advertises a major race sponsor in the Hahn brewery. Mercifully, none of their (rancid) product is on offer.

We walk to support vehicle #2.

PS- I finished 121st out of 1791 6k runners (top 7%) and was first for my age. However, I was beaten by three older participants, and each was 73 years old!

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Kapunda perspectives: Gundry’s Hill, the Duck Pond, and Dutton Park

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We’re doing a lap of Kapunda because it’s probably illegal to come home and not.

So, Lukey and I drive up to Gundry’s Hill. We’ll then swing by the Prince of Wales for a brisk beer before heading to the footy.

We hop out and wander around the grassy knoll. The sky is cloudless, and the rolling hills and crops are a reassuring green.

Glancing about I wonder does everywhere look better from a bird’s eye? Does it always provide a heavenly view? Ascending, do our earthly imperfections vanish?

What happened as we grew up in our town, nestled in that mundane, enchanted valley? Everything and nothing. It was hot and dusty, and cold and muddy. Can you be atop even the smallest hill and not become philosophical? Is private awe guaranteed?

Seeing the whole helps me remember the grainy episodes and to time-travel. I locate the spire of St Roses Catholic Church and it’s midnight mass and I’m an altar boy with lads who, for Father Moore, didn’t always behave like altar boys.

My eye finds the tiny primary school oval. I remember lunchtimes and my classmate Grant Dodman kicking what eleven-year-old me regarded as impossibly prodigious torpedo punts.

What do those from flat towns like Freeling do? How do they access a dreamy perspective?

With this elevated silence on Gundry’s Hill comes warming gratitude. I again gaze out across this modest, little town.

It becomes gentler and postcard-pretty.

*

Between the four pubs of the main street and the oval sits the Duck Pond. Although we knew the family well, nobody I know uses the official name, Davidson Reserve.

This ornamental lake was witness to youthful distraction. As with any locality on a map the geographical value is in the personal narratives.

Undertaking our compulsory tour of our hometown’s landmarks, Lukey and I pause and ponder by the water.

It’s suddenly our teenaged 1980’s.

I remember the cars we owned and can see them clustered conspiratorially by the Duck Pond. There’s Trisha’s Hillman Imp, all English and apologetic. Woodsy’s 180B in which one summer we did two ridiculous laps of Bathurst. My wife Claire’s (sadly our nuptials were a way off) little red and white mini, like an extra from Carnaby Street, London. There’s Lukey’s Alfa Romeo which aside from the then new Chinese restaurant in Nuriootpa, was the most exotic thing I knew.

The Saturday night vista is completed by a crowded used car lot of white HQ Holdens.

If I shut my eyes Stephen Trotta’s green Gemini has all the windows down and the Pioneer stereo volume up. A TDK C-90 cassette is playing. ‘US Forces’ by Midnight Oil blasts across the dark water and then we hear Mondo Rock’s moodily suggestive, ‘Come Said the Boy.’

As Dickens wrote, it was the best of times.

*

It’s a glorious late-winter’s day beneath the eucalypts at Dutton Park as the B grade footy concludes.

We’re here to see old friends and recount some well-worn tales. Woodsy, Keggy, Hollis, O’s. Fats and Chipper had called into Puffa’s. Whitey’s elsewhere.

Knots of timeworn faces huddle in front of the changerooms on the new wooden deck. Orange bunting separates us from the reunions of the 1973 B grade (Dad’s a member but can’t be here today) and Senior Colts premiers.

There’s something poetic about the equine term ‘colts’ for footy teams that’s much better than the numerical Under 17’s or Under 14’s. Looking over at the often less than sprightly reunionists someone says, ‘That’ll be us soon boys.’

There are folks I’ve not seen for decades like Kelpie Jarman and Peter Masters but the years melt away because we all lived in the same town.

I see three of the Mickan brothers in Goose, Drew, and Richie and have a quick chat with Macca. There’s much handshaking. By the canteen I bump into Fergy. In the morning he’s again off to Arkaroola and we share our experiences. Claire and I went there and to Hawker and Rawnsley Park on our honeymoon.

Early in the A grade Kapunda leads with three goals to two but then by quarter time it’s 13 majors to Angaston and not nearly enough for the Bombers. Nobody seems to mind for the air’s awash with nostalgia.

The first job, as always, when we congregate, is to organise the next event, so arrangements are made to visit Christmas Higgins’ brewery in Greenock. Before Christmas, of course.

I later learn that Morphettville race 9 is won by number 4. A seven-year-old bay gelding, its name is Angaston. And their team salutes too. By 25 goals.

But on the footy club deck it’s all chortles and familiar stories. Homecomings aren’t universally adored so I’m lucky to love these moments.

After the siren I drive south from this modest, little town.

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Mystery Pub: Stanley Tucci to play Greg Chappell in upcoming biopic

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The Britannia pub is by Adelaide’s most infamous roundabout. It was so unspeakably horrendous that its mere mention caused folks to shudder and shake. The final solution was, bizarrely, to build a second roundabout. This reminds me of the surgeon who says to a patient, ‘I’m sorry but the operation only has a fifty percent success rate.’

The patient replies, ‘Well just do it twice then.’

Twice a day for nearly eight years I drove through the Britannia roundabout.

In those 3,000 journeys I only saw one accident which is odd given back then it averaged a prang per day. There were plenty of near misses and times when motorists in front of me were paralysed by the challenge and didn’t enter the roundabout for what appeared as eternities. That one car headbutted a veranda post of the Britannia. The pub survived but I’m unsure about the vehicle.

When my ridiculous Nissan Exa was stricken with gearbox issues I rode my bike through the roundabout during peak hour on the way to and from Marryatville High. For nearly a week. It was a decent haul from Glenelg. The roundabout was exhilarating if fraught.

Friday nights in a pub should be fizzing with energy and promise and with the extra frisson of Mystery Pub they mostly are. But 5pm on Saturdays can be a lethargic, twilight zone. They’ve saluted in the last at Flemington so the sports bars are barren and it’s too early for dinner and the kids won’t hit the town for hours.  

The Britannia is mostly empty on Saturday for our Mystery Pub visit. Inside is stark and functional like a suburban café rather than seductive and intriguing and bursting with secret stories.

We claim a table with a Coopers Pale Ale (me) and a Padthaway white (Claire). I spy a brochure for the Repertory Theatre Company featuring the brilliant farce Noises Off. Unfortunately the performance dates and ours don’t align. Claire says, ‘Poo.’

Otherwise, it’s been a rewarding week as I saw Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, which in its metatextuality includes a documentary about a play within the nested narrative of the film. The sense of mise-en-scène is tremendous. Claire and I enjoyed an episode of Julia Zemiro’s Great Australian Walks and I continue to read Room with a View (upwards of a page a night before sleep) which is partly set in Florence.

Friday night we dined with dear, old Kapunda types (thanks for the soup, Trish and nice to see you Trev and Eleni). We discussed Stanley Tucci and his excellent series, Searching for Italy. Not only does our lovely friend Stephen look like him but their families are from neighbouring Italian villages. As a host Stanley is witty, curious and grateful (so is Stephen).

We also speak of the episode set in Sicily and Palermo. What utter privilege to know Italy and compare travelling tales. As always, Stephen and I chat about the Beach Boys and tonight dissect their wonderful, haunted song, ‘Heroes and Villains.’ I reckon Stanley might also be a fan.

He’s also in the great film Margin Call which explores the origins of the Global Financial Crisis. In it he plays a quantitative analyst who formerly worked as an engineer. Clearly bitter about Wall Street he delivers a monologue about the real, human benefits of a bridge he once built.

“It went from Dilles Bottom, Ohio to Moundsville, West Virginia. It spanned nine hundred and twelve feet above the Ohio River. Twelve thousand people used this thing a day. And it cut out thirty-five miles of driving each way between Wheeling and New Martinsville. That’s a combined 847,000 miles of driving a day. Or 25,410,000 miles a month. And 304,920,000 miles a year. Saved. Now I completed that project in 1986, that’s twenty-two years ago. So, over the life of that one bridge, that’s 6,708,240,000 miles that haven’t had to be driven. At, what, let’s say fifty miles an hour. So that’s, what, 134,165,800 hours, or 559,020 days. So that one little bridge has saved the people of those communities a combined 1,531 years of their lives not wasted in a car. One thousand five hundred and thirty-one years.”

As you can see, the gubmint should’ve phoned Stanley to fix the roundabout. After less than an hour Claire and I leave the Britannia. It’s quiet on the roads.

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At Large in Largs Bay: a parkrun yarn

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Easing down Jetty Road in Largs Bay there’s a sign pointing towards a Historic Shopping Village. Historic? If I put on my bowler hat, ring the bell apologetically, and enter will there be rations of corned beef, jam, sugar, and tea? Would each cost me 2 and 6?

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti the Pier pub appears and from the ghostly stage, I can almost hear Barnesy shrieking, sniff the stale West End Draught, and through the fug, see the frayed denim.

At the parkrun starting area (right near the public toilets) I chat with an English couple. They indicate to the south of the pub where they’ve just moved. They’ve done very nicely.

I ask, ‘Have you done this run before?’

‘No, we’ve been travelling, and this is our first one in eighteen months.’ I wish them well.

The briefing begins. It’s always encouraging, and I’m buoyed by the shared purpose and infectious sense of community. The Run Director explains that in quick succession the course goes over five bridges. Only two more for an Eagles’ song.

A dry fog drapes the city, and this generates an almost Victorian England atmosphere. Gazing ahead, the northern esplanade hides under a white cloak. We’re off and the sailing club is soon in the rear-view mirror as we ribbon out along Lady Gowrie Drive.

A distant siren wails through the mist, and I wonder what strife might’ve befallen folks on a quiet Saturday morning. This is replaced by birdsong, and I push into the brusque wind.

We’re now in Taperoo and over to the right is a geographic festival dedicated to Roy Marten. There’s the Roy Marten Dog Park, the Roy Marten Reserve, and alarmingly, the Roy Marten public toilet. I vow to visit. You can’t have too much Roy, whomever he is/was/might yet be.

This is a popular parkrun with one hundred and seventy-odd participants today. Dan, who I know from the Patawalonga event, reckons it’s a PB course. No pressure then. We’ll see.

We’re right in the heart of the Lefevre Peninsula. I imagine if it could secede from Adelaide, it just might. They’d strike their own currency, and each would feature a Port Magpies footballer. Russell Ebert on the fifty, Fos Williams on the twenty and on the dollar coin Bomber Clifford grinning like a shot fox. Their air force mightn’t be much chop, but they’d assemble a tough navy.

I swing for home and over the rise see the jetty and pub. In their white silence both are majestic and it’s a wintry postcard. Pippi’s coffee caravan remains shut by the footpath and I wonder why. Surely weekend breakfast is peak for the caffeinated.

A large wooden yacht is in a front yard. On a trailer, it’s in poor repair, and I remember it from my student days golfing at North Haven. At least, I think it’s a yacht. Ben Lexcen, if he were still about, could help with my nautical lexicography. I’m sure it’s been there for over three decades, and a better option might’ve been a garden gnome. What’s the owner been thinking all this time?

With the end approaching (today’s run not mortality, I hope) I pass another commercial caravan on the esplanade. It’s a doggie wash van with, as one would expect, a Billy Joel theme.

Puptown Girl.

I’m a slow starter, but usually finish well. A few runs ago in Glenelg, Dan and I did our last kilometre in a decent-for-old-chaps four and a half minutes. The results are emailed mid-morning. My PB remains elusive.

Next week.

Back in my car I strap on my Abraham Lincoln beard and put a shilling in my waistcoat pocket. I’m off to the Historic Shopping Village.

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To Bazz, on his 70th birthday

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I met Bazz on Saturday, January the sixteenth, 1993. It was 2.43pm at the Kimba Cricket Club. We spoke of sport, beer and Frank Zappa. As you do. As we still do.

You’re sitting around a table having an ale. Here’s a suggestion: name a ridiculous song from, say, 1974 and watch as Bazz launches into a fetching soprano and sings with perfect recollection of the lyrics.

For example, mention, ‘The Night Chicago Died’ by Paper Lace. Watch as he cups his right ear with his hand as if he’s holding headphones, or a set of cans as we in the music business call them. Listen now. Can you hear him? He’s the forgotten fourth Bee Gee.

I heard my momma cry

I heard her pray the night Chicago died

Brother, what a night it really was

Brother, what a fight it really was

Glory be

I reckon I’ve seen Bazz do this about 846 times. He also has an encyclopaedic knowledge of TV and film, especially that revered and timeless text, Caddyshack. All of this is vastly useful.

Allow me to briefly talk about golf. Many of us have spent time on a fairway with Bazz, enjoying a leisurely and good-natured walk, and punctuated by the royal and ancient game. But and we’re going back decades, on uncommon occasion Bazz may have been a tiny bit dismayed if his game suddenly disappointed him.

Years ago Hen and I were hiding behind a tree on the Clare golf course as a freshly loosened five iron went spinning by just like a chopper in Apocalypse Now. Between frightened sobs, our conversation went something like this.

Can we come out yet?

No.

What’s happening?

He’s just hit another ball. *We hear a distant splash.

Oh, no. He’s now seven from the tee.

Let’s just stay behind this tree for a bit longer. *We hear another distant splash.

Good idea!

Now this might be exaggerated or not but we’ve all mellowed. Especially Bazz. A certain dignified gentleness has arrived for us.

In 2005 a group including Annie and Bazz took a day trip from England to Amsterdam. Anne Frank’s House was affecting and crowded. After visiting Nieuwmarkt- zigzagging about the canals and museums, we entered the heart- or is it groin- of the Red-Light district with its mannequin-like prostitutes behind windows.

Now, this is a place that scowls at indelicate behaviour. The expectations are centuries-old and respected. Mostly. Enter Bazz. Tragicomically stricken with zero speech filters, he hollered across to his ever-patient wife, ‘Hey Annie!’ He then continued at increased volume. ‘Pick out which ****** you’d like to join us for a *********!’

But it’s both instructive and a joy to observe Annie and Bazz as a couple. The affection with which they hold each other is a model for all of us. The care, the gentle humour and the depth of their love are wonderful to witness. Long may this continue.

Bazz is unmatched in his generosity. Many of us have been a beneficiary of his time, electrical expertise, tree surgery, food reviews, kindly ear for our troubles, endless beer, and golf tips. For these and so much more, from all of us, thank you.

So, once more imagine Bazz, as hand transfused over his right ear, he harmonises on this 1974 classic by the Doobie Brothers.

Well, I built me a raft and she’s ready for floatin’

Ol’ Mississippi, she’s callin’ my name

Catfish are jumpin’, that paddle wheel thumpin’

Black water keep rollin’ on past just the same

Happy 70th birthday Bazz. Wishing you well, always.

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Mystery Pub: You right there Darl?

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Everybody in the front bar ends each sentence with, ‘Darl.’

‘Just another pint thanks, Darl.’

‘Here’s your change, Darl.’

‘Which Aristotelian concepts most influenced Western thought, Darl?’

It’s just prior to 5pm in the Henley Beach Hotel but many of the front bar punters give the distinct impression that they’ve been in here for much longer. It seems very lived in. There’s a steady clunking from the pool table.

I order us a drink. Roger, known to the bar staff variously as Roger or Darl leans past me like I don’t really belong and grabs a bottle of bitters. He shakes a few drops into his beer. One of the bar staff (the one without the visible neck tattoos) says to Roger, ‘You right there Darl?’ Roger explains how he generally shakes a few drops of bitters into his beer. She nods and replies, ‘No worries, Darl.’

We head next door into the Family Bistro, and I wonder who could eat an entire family. I usher Claire onto the front veranda where there’s darts on the TV and a good view of the beach and late-afternoon sky, either side of the esplanade’s squat toilet block. It’s a little brisk so we return to the Bistro where, near as I can tell, nobody’s yet ordered a medium-rare family.

Claire and I dissect our days during which my wife went to the Post Office. This is now usually a fraught exercise, and the almost imperceptible queue movement means that the package you’re sending to Europe gets there before you return to the car. We remember the days when all you could buy at a post office were stamps.

Having not been inoculated against the rampant front bar contagion I ask Claire, ‘What would you like now, Darl?’

‘A glass of red, thanks,’ comes her colloquial pronoun-free response.

The bar staff slips a couple of raffle tickets into my paw, and I slap these down on our table like a card shark in a Vegas casino.

‘No idea,’ I declare when Claire asks what the raffle prizes are. We then speak of that decidedly Aristotelian concept, the meat tray, and its various symbolic values.

‘I only ever won once,’ Claire confesses. ‘A chook when I was in primary school.’ Good to note the Catholics encouraging gambling I thought. St. Joseph, patron saint of chooks and trifectas.

‘Alive or not?’ I asked.

‘Dead.’

I was curious. ‘How did that go at home with a family of nine?’

Claire describes that her Mum made it work, as she always did.

A glance at the Family Bistro menu reveals that it’s ‘inspired by our surroundings’ but I can confirm I saw no cattle on the beach nor stray snags in the carpark. Perhaps the specials include a ‘hideously expensive gentleman’s bungalow’ with salad or veg.

The Family Bistro’s getting busy with folks kicking off their weekend with a nosebag at the boozer. It’s home time for us.

We recklessly abandon our free raffle tickets and scarper to the motor, confident that the winner of the neck chops was a front bar resident likely called, ‘Darl.’

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A Cheery Cemetery Story

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In her eternally breezy way Claire says, ‘The cemetery’s such an interesting place to go.’

She doesn’t know what’s about to happen and I feel a pocket-sized spasm of panic.

I veer into the left lane so we can go to the first destination of our Mystery Day. Feeling happy with my insightful planning, I’m taking us to the West Terrace cemetery, and Mystery Day works best when there’s an intact sense of mystery, which of course, is now entirely vanished given my wife’s casual, prophetic remark about her continuing curiosity surrounding graveyards.

I’ve never been to this cemetery and knowing Claire’s interest in the stories of everyday people we select a self-guided walking tour that points us toward headstones offering tragic and triumphant narratives.

I open the website on my phone and off we stroll.

How many of us are at our very best on Saturdays, just before lunch? Our afternoon stretches out with the enthralling promise of carefree hours as we make our way through the city and punctuate the day with conversations that leap joyously between our past, present, and future.

The cemetery sprawls in every direction so it truly is a necropolis. Pleasingly, we’re alone. A bustling memorial park serves nobody well.

The digital map directs us to Road 2 Path 10 Site 26 West. It’s a modest grave for Maria Gandy. The plaque is informative. Born in Hampshire she became known to Colonel William Light. Claire and I then recall Year 12 Australian History at Kapunda High.

I’ve a vague notion. ‘Didn’t he spend time in prison? Remember Mr. Krips telling us about him?’

Claire nods as the rain begins. Has there ever been a film scene in a cemetery or a funeral and it doesn’t rain? ‘No, it wasn’t Colonel Light. It was someone else. Light surveyed the city. You’re thinking of the guy who had the idea for the colony of South Australia.’

This is why Claire achieved a perfect 100 in matric Australian History, and I didn’t.

I now have a belated flash. ‘That’s right. Wakefield. Edward Gibbon Wakefield.’

Maria Gandy accompanied Colonel Light to Adelaide, became his housekeeper and carer and, according to the day’s idle talk, much more than this. After Light’s death she married his physician George Mayo and had four children with him before tuberculosis claimed her. She was thirty-six.

There we were beneath the swirling July rain nattering about South Australia’s colonial past and our high school days right in the heart of our warm and incasing present. Cemeteries also quietly guide our gratitude and sharpen our sense of the fragile now. There were narratives all around, but mostly I thought of ours.

I’ve nearly finished reading Be Mine, the final release in my favourite series, the Frank Bascombe novels by Richard Ford. The storyteller takes his dying son on a sad, harrowing, and strangely humorous road trip to Mt. Rushmore and mindful of life’s delicacy, more than once mentions how, ‘there is no was, there is only is.’

*

Scurrying back through the drizzle to the car Claire suddenly announces, ‘Look.’ She then gives a happy sigh. We stop.

On top of a grey headstone is Claire’s favourite bird, a magpie. From its mouth hangs a clump of twiggy, leafy matter. He’s proud to show us his familial efforts. He’s building a nest.

And so, in this vast acreage dedicated to the city’s dead we see a sign of eager, irrepressible life and nature’s renewal. Holding hands, we walk on, and the rain slows.

4

Mystery Pub Madness: The Olivia Hotel and the General Havelock!

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With her now traditional misdirection Claire drives me up and down and around Hutt Street.

We circle many hotels and bars and so my uncertainty regarding tonight’s Mystery Pub is happily heightened.

Wife – 1, your correspondent – 0.

Parking on Carrington Street we then walk past the snug terrace homes and accountancy and law firms with their wintry windows all aglow.

The Olivia Hotel is new, but the interior design is deliberately shabby with intimate, living room atmospherics. Among former functions it was an Asian restaurant, and I can see it. Ambling in, we hear Feist’s excellent song called ‘1234.’

Given our Formula One bladders, we race at the loos through the courtyard. It’s compelling in a Mediterranean, film-set way, and we note that it’d be a decent garden for a summer’s evening. A century-old grapevine is the defiant, gnarly centerpiece.

A staircase spirals heavenwardly into the rooftop bar. I love the idea of these elevated areas but wonder if we’ll look back at some of them as our boozers’ skinny leather ties.

With hopping orange flames there’s two fireplaces, and these create an alluring mise-en-scène.

I order ale while Claire has a chardonnay and we get a table by a bookshelf, loaded with games like Scrabble and weighty, ancient cookbooks. Margaret Fulton’s surely in the ghostly pile.

Claire asks, ‘Do you think anyone actually plays these games?’ I reply that I don’t think it matters for their aesthetic value is symbolic. Rather than engaging in a boisterous bout of Monopoly, folks are comforted by knowing they could play. Ah, the sanctuary of proximate boardgames.

And then, dear readers, our afternoon took a curious turn.

*

Always capable of a sun-drenched surprise Claire declares, ‘After this we’re heading next door to the General Havelock.’ Such boldness, such cheerful extravagance. Two Mystery Pubs!

What a time to be alive on Hutt Street.

So, we decamp to the Havey and it’s quiet but still before six bells.

Standing at the bar I recall being here late last century and mulleted men in chambray shirts and women wearing rugby tops with upturned collars and Gumbo Ya Ya playing New Orleans rhythm and blues.

Above the fireplace there’s a topographic map of Adelaide in 1876 and Claire and I peer and point and examine in our almost superannuated way.

‘Where’s Adelaide oval?’

‘Do you think that’s Norwood?’

‘Why so many churches?’

Even for a June 30, Friday evening it’s fun.

Our geographical ponderings are disturbed when a loud conga line of young, drunk things evidently celebrating the end of the financial year (EOFY) bursts into the pub and wobbles out towards the beer garden.

Oh.

Partying to honour fiscal milestones is as mystifying as throwing a bash because you’ve just bought three cheap tyres for the Corolla. It may be brash and inappropriate, but I was reminded of this.

What do accountants use for contraception?

Their personality.

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To Max and Alex, on basketball and theatre

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Dear Alex and Max

I write about two major achievements of which I’m tremendously proud.

Max’s basketball

I knew you loved it when you spent long hours practicing down at St. Leonard’s. However, during your first game when I saw how advanced your skills are, I was still surprised.

Defensively, you complete towering blocks, and can seriously obstruct a dribbling opponent. Like a warrior you guard the key, while snatching impressive and inspiring rebounds.

I’ve also noted your teamwork. It’s characterised by generosity, and the constant empowering of those fortunate to be in your lineup. This is true leadership.

Beyond these, you have substantial offensive abilities, and I especially like your jump shot as well as your occasional three-pointer!

You have talent.

On the court you generate good.

In some ways the most stirring moment of your career was after the tie at Morphett Vale. While it’s agreed that the referee made the wrong call, I like how you displayed an acceptance of this. Many would’ve had a meltdown, but you showed great discipline and management of the disappointment.

These are vital attributes, and I am massively proud.

I want you to let this basketball confidence spill over to school and home and influence these areas of your life.

Allow it to be a happy infection!

Alex’s acting

The instant you entered the stage during The 39 Steps as a Scottish crofter was one of my life’s outstanding events.

Your talent for projecting character both physically and vocally was instantly obvious. I loved how you demonstrated great comedic skill with your confident and remarkable accent. Although you had told me you were pleased with this, I was stunned. Your next challenge is Michael Caine!

You also exhibited that unteachable quality of presence.

Comic timing, and generosity towards your fellow performers also caught my attention.

Weeks earlier when you described aspects of the play such as breaking the fourth wall, slapstick, and how the music and lighting functioned, I was deeply proud of your insights and capacity to assuredly use this theatrical language.

I can imagine how, just like us Kapunda kids, these friends might be ones you’re seeing decades after you all leave Brighton.

Now, I also want you to utilise these considerable skills across the rest of your subjects and at home. Collaborate and give to others just like you did on stage. Apply yourself totally.

Both of you possess significant advantages. You’re clever and perceptive; you’ve ready senses of humour and show the 21st century’s key skill: critical thinking.

Dad

X

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Open a Kissing Gate

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It’s dusk on a Friday.

Below us, and the tree-lined slopes, are the now-twinkling lights of the city.

Tramping along together in our cocooning coats, the creek’s interrupted by a stone wall. Behind us is the cottage’s yellowish beacon. Claire’s scarf bounces.

On the Heysen Trail, we’re approaching Norton Summit.

As we swing open a kissing gate it protests with a shriek. My phone light shafts over the scrub as if it’s generating suspenseful effect in a horror flick.

Upon arriving at Morialta Barns we ignited the fire. The redgum was now burning, but gently.

We heard the ghostly bleating of hidden sheep. The rounded hills were receding into the rising murk. Bushes swayed and jumped at the directive of a gust. Our hosts reckoned we could encounter a quietly twitching roo.

Chatting about the days we’ve had and the days we’ve to come, we clasp hands for affection, and warmness.

An hour earlier, having collected Claire from the city, we edged up majestic Magill Road, through the eastern suburbs and then suddenly, bottle-green paddocks were pushing back the forest. There we were, in the countryside. The transition was startlingly brisk.

We’d jettisoned.

Steering our way through another gate, there was the Scenic Hotel. My birthday dinner would soon be served.

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West Beach parkrun: cocooned in this calm esplanade

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An hour after Saturday’s slow dawn I edge into the throng at the Harold and Cynthia Anderson Reserve. On the neat lawns there’s people from across the athletic spectrum and dogs and dads with wide, black prams.

With a few hundred others I head north in the shared enterprise that is the West Beach parkrun. The congestion rapidly evaporates and peering ahead, the coloured stretch of joggers is elasticising along the esplanade.

To my right is a playground. With my teenaged boys having abandoned this age of innocence, I feel a saddening sting that comes from the despair of time moving quickly, too quickly. As I amble through, I can almost hear the spectral shrieks.

We snake by the Henley Sailing Club, all imposing and vaguely smug in its nautical whiteness. A greyish blue sea is on my left, and the trail chaperones us along the dune and among the hardy coastal vegetation. The city’s close by but we’re immersed in this surprising strip of wilderness.

Here the beach presents as serene and health-giving, somehow more encouraging of a life to be brightly lived. Then we take the bridge over Breakout Creek and the Torrens outlet. We often hear of the mighty Murray, and the mighty Mississippi; well, this is the tremendously modest Torrens but it’s our little river and makes for a fetching ecosystem.

A pair of female runners catches me, chatting about a casino win. Remember how going to a casino was once an event but now holds less ceremony than popping down to the servo in Ugg boots and shapeless trackies?

Pushing on, the Henley jetty swims into view. The talented local poet, John Malone, once wrote that jetties are umbilical cords attaching us to better versions of ourselves. Accepting this premise, every month I stride onto a jetty for the inner benefit of both gazing out to sea and back to the silent, sometimes worrying land. I think it works.

We pass the Henley Beach hotel. It’s a serviceable alehouse but fails to sunnily exploit its location. Rather than embracing the seaside and affirming breeze it seems to defy these. Maybe I should swing by soon to offer it redemption.

At Joe’s Kiosk I turn around and am southbound, encouraged by a clapping volunteer.

There’s an agreeable absence of metropolitan sounds. I’m cocooned in this calm esplanade and the solitude of running promotes a falling into yourself that’s neither acutely aware of the current slog nor meditative. This morning, running just is.

Gulf St. Vincent is gentle today and its mood washes onto me. Last week we had a rearing surf as a winter storm dumped mounds of brown seaweed. For all their ferocity, these tempests offer natural reassurance and a restoring intimacy.

Returning to the Harold and Cynthia Anderson Reserve I quicken and then cross the finish line. Knowing my time is modest I remember to focus on the act of having completed the run. The story’s narrative heave is often more important than the finale. I’m content.

Clumps of joggers again gather on the clipped lawns, their morning exercise now taken. Like me, some will disperse into satisfying and routine Saturdays. It’s the seventh birthday of West Beach parkrun so there’s cake for all. It’s a robust community.