I injured a calf muscle about 6 weeks ago. Since then I've done very little running and none at all for the past three weeks. Today was a big event: I ran all the way to work! And with no apparent exacerbation of the old injury.

The picture tells the story; well some of it anyway.

• Songs Without Words - Ann Packer
• Runaway - Alice Munro
• The Ten-Year Nap - Meg Wolitzer

Since it appears that I'm not going to be running for a while, I'm going to be spending a fair bit of time walking the roads instead. Some good audio-books should enhance that experience significantly.

Since the Bourke Street Bakery on Broadway is closing, I've been getting a fruit bun from the Wynyard Patisserie to supplement my fruit & nut bread from Fuel Bakery. I'd say the Wynyard Patisserie actually makes the second-best fruit toast in the Sydney CBD (after the one I make myself). Here's one I had yesterday:

They wouldn't sell me four loaves of fruit bread at Fuel Bakery. They said they might not have enough to supply their orders. Next time I'll be putting in an order - become a legitimate customer.

I'll send them a fax in the morning and they can throw some extra dough into the mix so there's 4 loaves ready for me by 17:30 pick-up time.

Who needs Bourke Street Bakery! Ha!!

Yesterday, Sunday, is my normal day for a long run (24 km). I couldn't run due to injury, so I did a 15 km walk. Bob Maynard on ABC Classic FM, played a Haydn aria, based on the poem Solo e Pensoso by Francesco Petrarca.


I contemplated the first few words (which had been read out by Bob) as I trudged along:

"Solo e Pensoso"

by Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374)

(English translation by William H. Fredlund.)

Alone and deep in thought
I measure with slow and lingering steps
the deserted fields,
ready to flee if my eyes discern
a human footprint in the sand.

No other defense have I,
that will save me from
the knowing glances of mankind,
for in my looks, bereft of joy,
one may read outwardly
how I burn within.

So that now I think
only the mountains and the hillsides,
the streams and forests,
know the temper of my life,
that which is hidden from all men.

Yet no path is so harsh, so savage,
that Love cannot find a way to join me,
and to speak to me,
and for me to respond.

Is this as good as it gets?

Imagine how it feels to be holding hands with a giant lentil! Not to mention eating some free lentil chili.


There's got to be only one place in the world you can do this, and I'm honored to have a friend who lives there.

I'm talking about the annual Lentil Festival in Pullman, Washington, of course. Hold on Barb, I'm coming over!! I wonder how my Egg and Lentil Curry would go in the great Lentil Cookoff?

I am a creature of habit.

Therefore it's unsettling to have to change those habits. My source of coffee beans (Macro) closed, so I had to find another coffee.

Now the Bourke Street Bakery on Broadway is closing - the place where I went for my weekly purchase of a loaf of hazelnut & sultana sourdough. Apparently the Catholic Church has bought the site and are going to demolish it to make way for a new building for the Notre Dame University. The Bourke Street Bakery owners are putting more time into their new venture in Erskine Street in the city, and aren't going to relocate the Broadway store.

Oh well, I thought, I'll just buy the bread from Erskine Street. It's not so convenient, but is quite achievable.

So I went there today: Central Baking Depot. I got there before their official 7am opening time and they were already open!  That's a good sign, I thought.



It started raining as I tramped back to the office. I was cold, wet, and miserable.

It's a special day today...I got to have brekky withdaiskmeliadorn . 




We went to Toby's Estate café . Their coffee is always good.

More importantly we had quite a good chat about the state of things. I heard a bit about how Liquor, Hospitality & Miscellaneous Union is traveling and what it's like to work for them. She's reading Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. At the start of the book Alinsky says:

Feeling somewhat low (yes. I know....more so), I decided to go to Mecca. Not to pray (although perhaps that might have been a better option), but to partake of their coffee. I don't drink coffee at their shop any more because they kept forgetting to bring me my coffee. However, Macro, my source of Bun ground coffee for my plunger at work, has closed.

Mecca roast their own coffee, and in my humble opinion, make the best coffee in the CBD. They had two blends: "Dark Horse Blend", and "Kenya AA Gethumbwini - Brazil Fazenda Rodomunho".



I didn't know which might be best, or, more importantly, which would give me the greater lift out of my depressive state, so I bought both.

I've just tried the Dark Horse Blend. Tastes good! Just waiting for the mood elevation to kick in. . . .

I had a mixed day today.

It didn't start off too well. On my run I injured my calf muscle and for a while I thought I was going to have a lot of trouble getting home. I was 5 km from home and it was about 04:45. I was near Lindfield railway station, but there were no trains running due to track maintenance and the buses replacing the trains were few & far between. Anyway, with a few stops and some walking and very slow jogging, I did eventually get back home. Injures...that's what you expect when you're turning 56 I guess. No doubt there will be more to come. Now, at 17:00, it's still quite sore, but I can walk on it. Looks like I'll be walking to work tomorrow, or maybe even catching the NightRide bus.

However, my family birthday lunch went well. The (banana) cake was a good likeness, I think. What do you reckon?

Taxis. Taxi-drivers. I generally don't like them because they act as though they have the right to do anything they want, regardless of how much it inconveniences other road users. Of course, I say this from the point of view of someone who never uses taxis. I can't afford a cab.

However, last year I got to know (a little) a taxi-driver called Dzedek. He's Polish, and came to Australia about 20 years ago, I think. (Interesting aside: When he was staying at Villawood Migrant Hostel after he arrived, a social worker-type advised him to spell his name Jedek. "Australians won't be able to cope with Dz sounding like J", she said. So that's how he usually spells his name: Jedek. I stick with the original.)

He used to work as an electrician, but finds taxi-driving suits him better. I got to know him because he was regularly waiting outside the Shangri-La Hotel at about 04:15 when I ran past on my way to work. He would begin his shift at 04:00 and if he didn't have a booked fare, he wait at the cab rank for the wealthy Shangri-La customers to emerge, looking for a taxi...to the airport most of the time, I guess. He would often be out of the cab, doing some exercises or just walking around. He's a lovely man and has forced me to re-think (or actually do some thinking) about my judgmental and unjustified attitude towards taxi drivers.


However, he hasn't been there for about 2 months and I was worried that he might be sick.

But he's not sick; this morning I saw him!

He was driving past the Shangri-La as I was running past. We shook hands and exchanged greetings like old friends. It turned out that he's been just waiting elsewhere for customers or driving around seeking them out. Probably the economic downturn has meant there are less tourists catching taxis and staying at expensive hotels. He says he won't wait at the Shangri-La if there's already two taxis in the rank, so he was on his way to cruise around the Rocks, looking for potential clients on their way home.

What's going on at the Sydney Opera House?

Today when I ran past it looked like they decided to color it with army jungle camouflage colors ... to hide it from potential terrorists??

A new day, a new piece of bread, a new book. The book is Bohjalian's The Double Bind, about (I gather, from publisher's blurb, reviews, etc) homeless people, mental illness, photography, exploring traumatic events from your past...it sounds good to me!

I'm reading "The Dive From Clausen's Pier" by Ann Packer. It's quite a good book, and is all about how life is a combination of decisions (yours and others) and what we might call fate - the occurrence of life-altering events which happen with no apparent cause and at instants in time that cause the event to have an impact which it might not have if it happened only a moment later or earlier. How decisions are influenced by feelings of guilt and duty... and how geographical proximity to the people who might influence you affects the strength of their influence. It suggests to me the value of physical separation from familiar people & situations if you want to discover your 'true' self. Of course, there's the possibility that your 'true self' is the self which is influenced by people around you. I guess that's what the book is really all about - making decisions in a real world where all these factors are involved.

I haven't finished yet (I'm up to page 340 out of 370 pages), but I'm feeling that it doesn't matter how it ends, I've had the value out of it already. There is no definitive answer to the questions it asks, it's the raised awareness of the questions which is the value of the book.

I was running down the Pacific Highway at North Sydney at about 03:45. There was no one around, of course, except for a few garbage trucks, and small delivery vans dropping off their milk & bread. Then I saw a flashing red light in the distance. It wasn't moving fast enough to be a bike light, I thought. However, when I got closer I saw that it was indeed a bike light, but the 'owner' was pushing it up the hill, not riding, and he was waving his arms to stop me.

"Wanna buy a bike?" he asked. "$10. It's a good bike, but I don't want it any more, and I need the money for a taxi fare home."

Well, I wasn't exactly shopping for a bike at that time, and I suggested to him that maybe he didn't actually own it. I don't recall his response, but I think it wasn't exactly a vigorous defense of his situation. Nonetheless, I couldn't resist an obvious bargain. It's old, but the brakes and gears are excellent quality, the wheels are true, it's fairly light....and it's black!


So I am now the proud owner of a ten-dollar bike. It has quick-releases all round - I'll have to see if I can replace those. Then it will go in the garage until daiskmeliadorn  needs another one.

When we arrived at 7am it was dark and very wet.



However, we soon settled in with our excellent: long black, soy skim latté and fruit toast.

Thanks to black star pastry, and the company of daiskmeliadorn,  I had a very pleasant start to my day. It put me in a good mood for the whole working day!

I've been on a trial of gluten-free food since around September 2008. This week I will be switching back to eating gluten. Thursday is g-day!

So today I set off for Bourke Street Bakery.

No waking headache - yay!....but slept alone again; could this be a factor? Running was so-so. There was a modest southerly wind, and I was feeling pain-free but tired and I wanted to not over-do it before Sunday's LSD, so I took it easy, although focusing on lifting my knees to avoid tripping.

G-day (gluten day) has been put back to Thursday 2 April, due to having enough GF bread to last until then.



daiskmeliadorn  came to visit me yesterday! She has invited me to Blackstar for brekky on Wednesday April 1! I'll look forward to that. The main agenda items would have to be:

1. LHMU
2. Sam

That should keep us busy for the whole hour (or more)!!



On my pre-brekky walk this morning I came across this great crop of wild mushrooms, growing in a very dry spot under a freeway bridge in Ultimo. I wondered, Should I pick them & eat them? I work with a guy who grew up apple scrumping and picking wild mushrooms in England, and he reckons nearly all wild mushrooms are edible. I was tempted...my freegan habits said Yes, but my conservative gastronomic background and upbringing got the better of me and I left them there for the next passing fungus lover.