It's All In A Name

I have spent the day phoning around to find an adventurous soul to Executive Produce the film. The EP is the one who opens the doors for the money to flow, so they are very important cogs in the risky business of filmmaking. I am constantly amazed and delighted by how accessible and generous film people are.

After a fruitful and exciting day I need to wind down, not that it was particularly stressful as days go. Have you ever seen the Foxtel show Relocation, Relocation? That's the story of my life today. Having psyched myself up to leave the delights of sleepy Golden Beach and relocate down here, I find myself following my intuition and saying yes to moving to Brisbane next week instead, both for family and film reasons. Adapt, adapt, adapt.

So I take myself across the road to the Fountain Cafe. Sam's side of the road is upmarket Elizabeth Bay. The other side is Kings Cross. Instead of my daily walk, I will sit and enjoy the El Alamein Fountain. I'm hooked on all things water, as you may have noticed.

This is daylight saving at its best. I remember to breathe and slowly sip a chilled white wine and watch the passing parade. In the last month I have eaten at least two distinctly trendy cafes buzzing with life and beautiful people. Enough to know the customers here are not the trendy type. Rather they are simply locals enjoying a fine evening outdoors.

As we walked past the fountain recently, Sam reminded me of some family history I'd conveniently forgotten. Miss Four was seriously miffed because we adults did not take any notice when she likened the iconic fountain to a dandylion. And that is exactly what it looks like. A dandylion. A beautiful, watery dandylion.

The fountain was built to commemorate the battle of El Alamein in the Middle East in World War II. Pa, Sam's delightful grandfather, fought at El Alamein, and tonight he unexpectedly feels very close. He would be chuffed with today's decision. My father-in-law and I were great mates. As we worked outdoors on the farm he would tell me stories about the Middle East, before he met and married the beautiful Joan. He confided about war in the Western Desert, both the ugly and the funny, and his love life in occupied Syria. “Don't tell your mother,” he'd conclude. And I never did.

Does it ever strike you as odd that there are few monuments to our equally brave Aboriginees who were massacred by the European boat people? This is a sore point with some of my Indigenous acquaintances, and who can blame them.

Since my last visit I have read the hilarious Aunts Up The Cross by Robyn Dalton. Before her decrepit family home was demolished sometime after WW II, it stood on the very spot where the fountain is today. When my friends heard how much I enjoyed her book, they lent me Angel Puss by Colleen McCulloch, another good read about life here.

As I took a short cut along Kellett Street a couple of weeks ago I witnessed a very well dressed, forty-something man on his mobile phone, “If you don't pay me by tonight you will be in hospital tomorrow, with so many breaks in both your arms and legs you'd wish you were dead.” And he wasn't kidding. Needless to say I tried to make myself instantly invisible. Phew! I don't do Kellett Street any more.

Though it's obvious that the area has all been gentrified since Sam was a four year old, there's still enough local colour to show its underbelly occasionally.

Last Saturday the farmers' market took place beside the fountain in gale force, freezing winds which whipped little bits of “hair” of the huge old trees. The air was full of it. Personal experience has taught me that if you get ones of these little suckers in your throat it causes choking, like a severe asthma attack. Not pleasant. Much to my amusement, an enterprising young man from the local pharmacy was doing a roaring trade selling disposable face masks. So people went about their regular weekend activities adorned with masks. Strangely un-Australian it looked too.

This magnificent evening I enjoy the sense of place and nibble my way through a plate of nachos. The unexpectedly Asian take on the dish tickles my sense of humour. All the staff are of Asian cultural heritage which probably explains the lack of Mexican-ness. I wonder what their pizzas taste like.

But then so many things in Kings Cross are a little on the weird side. This is not good for real estate values it seems. From a real estate point of view it doesn't exist. The apartments for sale are in Potts Point, not Kings Cross, even though my Sydney guide book says Kings Cross and the railway station says Kings Cross.

It's all in a name.

Barbara Carseldine
watertools@gmail.com
www.knowingwater.com