A pool with a view

This weekend has been a veritable feast of catching up with people from home. On Friday night, after a remarkably long 3-day week at work, I headed out for beers with some folks from my last job, plus an old pal from many years ago when I worked at Community Fund. Kathleen has spent a lot of time in recent years based in war zones (Afghanistan, Iraq), so it was good to see her looking alive and healthy, and enjoying an extended period of leave. Friday was one of those nights where a few beers became more beers which became a taxi ride home at 11pm, followed by crashing on the couch to watch some random TV (Andy Murray vs Roger Federer in this case!) before falling asleep and having to be put to bed by K when he came in – some things never change, no matter what the hemisphere!

On Saturday I had the latest practical session of my photography course, which involved a couple of hours of doing an outdoors shoot with a model. It was good fun and apparently I’m a natural at directing models (!) I think I’m just naturally bossy! Then K and I met up and headed over to Coogee where we met up with pals Sam & Lyndsey and their little boy, Addie, who were over here on holiday from their usual abode in France. Great to see them and catch up.

Sunday was a day of culture and sport, including a very good portrait photography exhibition called Wisdom, featuring lots of head and shoulders shots of over 65s, accompanied by their thoughts on life. Now that I know about things like lighting and composition, it was fascinating to look at photos in a more informed way than I normally do! We were going to go and see a Monet and the Impressionists exhibition, but it’s such big news to have something like that here, that there were massive queues so we’ll go another time.

Then it was off to the North Sydney pool for my third swim of the week. The 50m pool there is outdoors and is chlorinated salt water, so much more pleasant to swim in than just plain old chlorine. The water is pretty warm and the whole place is clean, uncrowded and just really rather pleasant! It’s also nestled right at the foot of the Harbour Bridge, so you get amazing views of the bridge as you swim. It's got the feel of an old fashioned swimming baths and is one of my favourite things about Sydney so far. See pic for why!