Cricket, more cricket, and more and more cricket, and then football, and even more football

I watched the Boxing Day Test from the MCG, Aussies v NZ from 1st ball till lunch time then went for coffee at Mika on E Street (band!?), then more of the Test up until almost the end. 80,000 fans too, a record for the Boxing Day test for a non-Ashes game.

Now South Africa v England 1st Test is on which started as soon as Aust v NZ finished and there's the Big Bash too but I've turned the TV off. 1130pm is the first EPL game, Spurs v Brighton which I shall watch as I'm a Spurs fan. Maybe stay up later to watch one of the other games. I'll see.

I was half tempted to go to the beach after such a lovely swim at Bronte on Xmas Eve but I think I've left it too late, tho' I've been down late in the evening. It was the same on Xmas Day, umming and ahhing then doing nothing.

I went to Bondi Beach five years ago to experience my first Xmas Day there. My second Xmas Day in OZ was at Palm Beach in 1979 with my brothers and mates from the private hotel we all lived at in Neutral Bay. The Royal Hotel, RIP, expensive apartments now. I should have bought one. We had cheese and ham sandwiches and cans of lemonade for Xmas Dinner and it was great. We should have bought an Esky and some grog the day before but nobody thought of it.

We never thought of things like that either. I lived the Royal for a year and it never occurred to buy an Esky or even a bar fridge or just keep a few bottles of water. So, hungover, I would go down to the communal bathroom and cup my hands under the tap for a drink of water. My brothers, by then living in a flatette around the corner in Lower Wycombe Road, lived on cans of stew and they had one plate and a saucepan lid.

Later on, living in an old unit on the corner of Ernest and Miller Streets, Cammeray, we had no cupboards and no fridge. We used to keep our clothes in heaps on the floor, sorted heaps mind you. We weren't savages. Once we had a rat in the kitchen so Neil bought one of those "Tom and Jerry" traps, baited it with, yes, a lump of cheese, and in the morning, I did not believe those traps actually worked until I saw it.

Christmas, 1980 and our parents made their first trip to OZ to see us. They were so pleased to see how excited we were to see them. They did not stay with us but with a family friend in Castlecrag who lived in one of the Burley Griffin homes.

They came down to our flat straight off the plane and started organizing things. Cardboard boxes for pants, socks, vests and I think a broom stick supported by two other "sticks" to make somewhere to hang shirts. They bought us a fridge. And the garbos refused to pick up our rubbish as we did not have the right bags or bins. Solution? We had none but Mum and Dad put the rubbish in small bags and distributed in the street bins.

A few years later I was studying at UNSW and enduring two hour lectures sitting on the hardest and most uncomfortable seats I'd ever experienced. Twenty years later I was coming back to Rozelle one New Year's Day and I got off the ferry at Darling Street where people had watched fireworks nearby.

One woman picked up a tent from among the rubbish strewn about and I got three fold up cushions which I put in my car. Every time I went to the beach I had something soft to sit on at Neilsen Park where there was hard concrete. Why did I not think of that when I was at UNSW?

They are all gone now, not the cushions, which are still in my garage somewhere, but Mum and Dad and the lady from Castlecrag.