I used a Polaroid camera yesterday for the first time in many years, and no, not for the reasons you might be expecting! A friend of mine who is making a television program for screening later this year asked if I could help with the audition process.

I felt like Little Miss Secretary, as I greeted the applicants at a church hall in Darlinghurst, explaining the process to them, getting them to sign release forms, and taking an impromptu polaroid photograph of them.

To be honest, I didn’t know Polaroid cameras still existed. When my sister had one when I was a very young child it was a complex process using a polaroid camera and you could never be sure if they would turn out or not. As I recall, you had to wave it around in the air for sixty seconds before peeling off the sticky paper. By the time I had one in my early teens the process had been simplified somewhat. In fact, using the camera yesterday was remarkably similar.

Before arriving, I’d had a yummy breakfast at Una’s, the well-known Darlinghurst restaurant. Actually I hadn’t known it was open for breakfast until I’d walked past. I had the pancakes with strawberries and ice-cream, along with a coffee, which, although light, was probably about right. I also loved looking around the restaurant, curious to observe the type of people who might enjoy Breakfast

In particular, I loved the old German man (a regular I assume), who said only one word as he entered. “Bratwurst!”, he said loudly, and within minutes it was there. “Very good” were the only other words he used to the staff.

Aside from that it’s been a reasonably social weekend, including a drink with Graeme and Andrew on Friday night, a beer and steak with Mark and Andrew last night at the Strawberry Hills (accompanied by cool jazz!), and then a fiftieth birthday party for a workmate on board the South Steyne at Darling Harbour today.

After all this, I think I’m gonna need a holiday. Tomorrow, I hope to knock off a fair amount of the new Armistead Maupin book, as well as some family history research.