Tour Guide Extraordinaire - Day One

After the late night/early morning on Friday I was kinda glad I had agreed to meet my sister and her hubby at 12.30 in the lobby of their hotel in the Rocks. I wasn’t hungover but I was feeling tired and really like I wanted to have a day in bed. But family called and I answered.

I haven’t seen my sister H for over seven years. In that time she has divorced, met and new fella (C) and married him and lost her eldest son to the disease that made him sick his whole life. So to be truthful I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but I planned to show them some of Sydney and generally catch up.

We started, in grand British tradition with a cuppa tea and a light lunch. I have to confess to not really remembering what we talked about, but it was lovely and we did decide that we would make the trip over to Manly on the ferry. On the ferry over we talked about B (her son) and how I hadn’t called her because I knew she didn’t need one more person saying ‘sorry’. She understood and said the card I had sent had meant a lot and all the cards and flowers had been buried under a pergola at the bottom of her garden.

Upon our arrival in Manly I introduced H to Copenhagen Ice-cream, with a double scoop of Strawberry and Maple Macadamia I gave her the mission of finishing it before we reached the other end of the Corso. It was Hot on Saturday and as soon as we stepped out of air conditioned shop the ice-cream did it’s best to melt away. By the time we had reached the Beach and far end of the Corso, H had melted, sticky ice-cream covering her hand and down to her elbow. She admitted to having never seen even her children get so messy. The blue-bottles (jellyfish) in the water meant that she and C had to paddle in a tiny hole I dug that filled with water. But they got to stand in water on Manly Beach, so they were happy.

A walk took us to another beach (Delwood) were C sat and had a cigarette and watched while H and I went looked in Rock Pools. The ferry trip back to the city was more chatting and the start of sunset over the bridge and Opera House.

We had dinner at Doyles on the Quay. H and C both tried Sydney Rock oysters for the first time. I don’t think they will go out of their way to eat them in the future, but they didn’t spit them out. We drank some nice 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Coonawarra while we ate and chatted more. We reminisced about our childhood, shared gossip and opinion about our sisters and laughed about the incident with the ice-cream earlier. We even spoke about B but I had to change the subject when she started to look wet in the eyes. C looked on and said several times, 'it's good to finally met you', 'you sound just like your mum' and 'you haven't seen each other for years'.

I saw them to their hotel and agreed to meet them again at ten on Sunday. I walked home thinking about how a mother should never have to see her child die.

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