James O'Brien

A vague semblance of life has returned to my ‘hood tonight, with a few of the shops now re-opened. But overall, it’s been a very quiet weekend in Scruffy Hills, with many people having gone away for the weekend. And that’s how I like it: I really like being in Sydney for long-weekends, Easter, Christmas etc, because there are so few people around and there are so few cars on the road, making it a far more pleasant place to live. Yes, I guess I’m still a country boy in many ways, despite having lived in Sydney for twelve years!

Work has been quite busy lately, and is probably likely to get even busier over the next few months, and so I really needed just a few days of guilty-free nothingness. For me, that meant getting out of bed later in the morning, having afternoon naps, and putting my mind “on vacation”.

I’ve also been fairly successful in my attempt not to think about work. Was there a terrorist attack in Sydney? Well, I wouldn’t know because I consumed only a small amount of news media. I did, however, watch a lot of “The Simpsons” and “Will & Grace”, and smaller amounts of the “How To” Channel. I also watched the latest installment in the “Omen” series. In this “made for tv” (I suspect) movie, the daughter of Damien (the antichrist) is alive and causing havoc. But unlike the other parts of the series, the “Catholic thing” isn’t nearly as strong, replaced by snake-handling Pentecostals and New Age hippies taking aura photographs. To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t very good.

Socially it’s also been a reasonably quiet weekend, by my usual standards. I caught up with Colin and Damien last night for dinner (Colin cooked his spectacular corned beef), followed by a drink or two with Graeme. And then I caught up with Sue M today for lunch at the Indian vegetarian place on Cleveland Street (followed by a mineral water – yes seriously – at the Dolphin Hotel).

The rest of my weekend has involved probably far too much time on the couch, but I have no regrets. So yeah, it’s good to do nothing. M’kay?