el Loco & el Lobo

Travels in space and time

2013-05-12T10:33:00.000+02:00

A Doctor Who pop-up store has been operating in Newtown since Thursday. The long lines outside the store indicated that, rather disappointingly, it was not bigger on the inside. It wasn’t until this afternoon that I saw an opportunity to look inside and see anything but thirty people trying to squeeze around the items on display. Munson hung

Back in the groove

2013-05-10T14:22:00.000+02:00

Munson has been out of quarantine for a week now and is still very much happy as any dog not lonely, sleeping on concrete and surrounded by stressed barking dogs can be. He’s spent a few afternoons in Sydney Park, and walked many loops of the neighbourhood. Gustav likes taking Munson for a walk up the high streets just so he can hear passers-by cry out “

Catch-up time

2013-05-08T11:25:00.001+02:00

I've just started posting entries from the end of February when we had no internet connection at the farm for ten days or so, and we were so busy winding up our time in France that there was little time for blogging. If you subscribe to the feed then the posts will show up but backdated. Those of you who simply check the main page will have to use the archive links

Bring me the Wookiee

2013-05-04T15:52:00.000+02:00

It’s Star Wars Day and thus quite fitting that we go to liberate a wookiee from captivity. It’s six weeks since Munson was last a free dog, with a big day out visiting markets across central London. That six weeks comprised about ten days in London and then a month in Sydney quarantine. As we’re collecting him on a Saturday, there’s only a half-hour window 10-

Southern comforts

2013-04-29T09:29:00.000+02:00

We’re so close to being back in the house, I can almost feel it. It’s not quite as good as the feel of a key in the lock and a comfortable place to lay down, but it’s probably no more than 24 hours now. Gustav and I drove around inner city supermarkets and appliance stores to gather up cleaning gear and essential appliances in anticipation of having access today, but now I

Week 3

2013-04-23T12:36:00.000+02:00

I’m reporting in a little earlier this week, which is near the end of Munson’s third week of incarceration, and the start of our fifth. As Australia has a public holiday this Thursday, I had to schedule an earlier exercise appointment for the big muffin, which surely could not have been more welcome. His legs were spinning in the air like wheels in his hurry to get out on to

High Five

2013-04-18T08:05:00.000+02:00

Munson is five today! OK so the circumstances for celebrating are not as luxurious as could be, but tomorrow he’ll have completed half of his quarantine with happier days almost in our grasp. I brought him out some beef-flavoured rawhide strips to chew on, more for stress relief than edible treat. It’s a shame that when they need something to chew on the most, there is

Sun, surf and Sceolaun

2013-04-15T08:28:00.000+02:00

Sydney’s Indian summer continues with temperatures above 25C, leaving us little choice but to enjoy some time by and in the water a few times each week. Last Wednesday was Gustav’s birthday and we celebrated with a little picnic lunch by Redleaf Pool on the harbour. The pool is fully enclosed by a wooden boardwalk, with a shellfish-encrusted grille mounted below to

Exercise Yard

2013-04-11T12:24:00.000+02:00

Today was the first day Munson could be exercised out of his pen at the quarantine station. We had a half-hour slot in a grassy yard where he could bound about as much as possible. It was just as important for him to be able to sniff around some trees, lie on the grass and roll onto his back to have his belly scratched. As much as a milestone as this seemed, on top

Woo woo at Sing Sing

2013-04-04T10:25:00.000+02:00

We very nearly didn’t get to see Munson this week. I called the quarantine station yesterday in the hour permitted for bookings, and found that their booking system was down. If it didn’t come back up that day then I would have to wait till next week. Fortunately they called back two hours later and we got our half-hour slot arranged. The Eastern Creek

Munson update

2013-04-03T06:52:00.000+02:00

Everyone’s favourite little fluffstorm should now be wending his way through the skies towards Sydney for a pre-dawn landing, from which he will be collected and processed by the quarantine folks at the Eastern Creek station. I checked their website just now to review visiting times and policies – and once again it is a mire of self-conflicting information. I called

Eurolurgy update

2013-04-02T09:44:00.000+02:00

While I’ve been showing Gustav some more of Sydney over the Easter holiday weekend (notably The Rocks, Manly, Newtown and Sydney Park) I’ll leave it to him to record his impressions on his own blog, rather than me posting pictures of places that have already been well-covered in this blog. Jaded Sydneysider / Sybarite that I am, I’d rather save up for some posts when Munson is

Pinch me

2013-03-30T04:57:00.000+01:00

“Pinch me” was all that Gustav could say after he’d entered the water at North Bondi this morning. This was a defining moment, he really was in Sydney now on the white sands, in the blue-green water, under the white foam. The water temperature was about 22C, the conditions great for body surfing. I warned him earlier about aquatic dangers like the up-bear but he

Royal Easter Show: Sydney’s true underbelly

2013-03-29T10:13:00.000+01:00

Sydney’s Royal Easter Show has been running for almost 200 years to showcase NSW’s agricultural produce along with the usual side dishes of carnival rides, show-bags, and culinary excesses like chips-on-a-stick. I haven’t been to it since the show was transferred from its old Moore Park home to what is now Sydney Olympic Park, a little closer to the city’s population centre.

First morning

2013-03-28T09:44:00.000+01:00

I didn’t sleep at all last night, and Gustav probably only managed a couple of hours’ worth, but that was no obstacle to us being in the swim lanes at Andrew Boy Charlton Pool and doing laps early on our first morning. Gustav had the benefit of some adrenalin, having seen his first golden orb spider close up, hovering next to the path by Woolloomooloo Bay.

Treasure Aisle

2013-03-27T11:50:00.000+01:00

Copenhagen –> Dusseldorf –> Abu Dhabi –> Sydney Twenty six hours. We didn’t do too bad on the seating. The final leg was lightly loaded so we were able to shift into seats by the emergency exit aisle and stretch out for the duration. I woke up just as the plane crossed the Australian coastline at Port Hedland and followed our progress for a little

Swedish interlude

2013-03-25T12:30:00.000+01:00

I’ve been bouncing around from place to place white a bit over the last few weeks – I count 9 beds across France, England and Sweden since leaving the farm – but today is the last full day in the northern hemisphere before Gustav and I fly to Sydney. I’m glad that I got to see his parents one last time before departure, and Gustav had a few friends over for morning

Trains, Planes, Danes and Skåne

2013-03-24T09:34:00.000+01:00

My 11.30 flight from Heathrow was substantially delayed due to weather conditions in central Europe. The baggage checkin process was also so slow that it took more time to move through the 20 people ahead of me in the queue than to be driven in to the airport from Brentford. I had my own mental version of the events as seen from the clerk’s POV as he calls up to his supervisor: “

Taking flight

2013-03-23T20:06:00.000+01:00

This morning I dropped Munson off with Airpets at Heathrow in preparation for his flight on Tuesday, just as I did with Bondi just over five years ago. I will next see him just after Easter at the Sydney quarantine station. It’s unfortunate that we were not travelling later in the year, as the indication is that quarantine time would be cut from 30 days to 10. Even the time between

Book Fair

2013-03-23T10:07:00.000+01:00

With Munson now bedded down at Airpets, I went to Kensington to check out a book fair specialising in children’s titles and modern firsts. There was an interesting selection but nothing that cried out “buy me!”. My eye was drawn to a couple of Moomin cartoon strips by Lars Jansson and a couple of shelves of titles by the English nature writer Denys “BB” Watkins-Pitchford.

Gustav busts some moves ferschizzle

2013-03-23T09:02:00.000+01:00

Gustav is giving some last minute football tips to Lucy. Munson’s interest is split between playing with them and sniffing out treasures with Tosca. At the end of the day, he’s too tired to bother with any moving anxieties.

From market to market

2013-03-22T19:28:00.000+01:00

It seems to have become somewhat of a ritual that I visit Spitalfields market in the days immediately before leaving London. I miss the rather ramshackle old weekend I visited originally, but the sparkling new daily market still has its attractions. On my final visit with Bondi in 2007 I bought two big paintings which now feature in my living room. The noticeable

A slower clip

2013-03-21T15:11:00.000+01:00

Whether driving, or simply taking the Tube in and out of London, the last few days have been rather hectic. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, I also wake at 6am or earlier and never manage to resume my slumbers. Munson had no such worries after yesterday’s perambulations: he just stretched out and snoozed from the time we got home until dinner time and then went out like a light. In

Old friends

2013-03-20T17:58:00.000+01:00

I was extra fortunate today in being able to catch up with two friends in central London. Stuart (whose mum Shirley I stayed with a few days ago) I haven’t seen since Bondi and I left here in 2007, and Todd who I haven’t seen in over twenty years. Stuart was well acquainted with Bondi and even met Bondi’s brother Dougal when we weren’t long back in

The Orchard Tea Rooms

2013-03-19T15:43:00.000+01:00

A few minutes outside of Cambridge lies the village of Grantchester, and within its narrow reach, The Orchard where generations of students and luminaries have taken tea under the trees. One of its earliest regulars was the posthumously famous poet Rupert Brooke, who along with Virignia Woolf, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, E.M. Forster, Augustus John and John