Sculpted by Sydney

This year our "sisters and spouses reunion (long) weekend" in Sydney coincided with the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition from Tamarama to Bondi. We avoided the weekend crush by using our first Friday morning together to experience "Sculpture by the Sea". We walked from Coogee to Tamarama, along the new Sesqui Boardwalk on this cool, windy, overcast Sydney morning.

Glamorous Tamarama beach had been transformed into a stunning, sandy, gallery space. I loved seeing giggling schoolchildren, coachloads of tourists and earnest locals interacting with the works, against the fabulous backdrop of ocean and sandstone cliffs.

One of our favourite works was this spectacular, slow moving, kinetic sculpture set high above the cliffs above the Southern end of Bondi Beach.

But none of us could work out how to pick a winner from this diverse collection of works!

We braved the early Friday afternoon bumper to bumper traffic on Parramatta Road to travel West to Auburn for a late Turkish lunch at Cafe Mado and then coffee and Lebanese pastries at the wondrous Abla's at Granville. We also found it hard to resist a visit to Authentic Turkish Delight at RT's at Auburn.

We were able to meet up with Jeremy and Claire and the boys in Coogee this weekend too. We had great fun sharing an early evening meal at our favourite Clovelly Pub and Sunday morning breakfast at the newly spruced up Barzura's on the Southern end of Coogee Beach. Angie was in fine form and enjoying the opportunity to spread his influence around Sydney and Ollie was inspired by his Poppa's explanations about playing Chess.

We crammed a lot in on Sunday. Bus, then train to Milson's Point for the Kirribilli Art and Design Markets, then walk to Lavender Bay and a wander around Wendy Whiteley's garden. I didn't get to have much of a wander. I tripped on the wet stone stairs, twisting my ankle/foot and falling flat on my behind. I had lots of kind people to help me recover but it made walking for the rest of the day very painful.

Wendy was working in the garden. She must have groaned seeing me topple over on the stairs (..another likely lawsuit perhaps!). She came over for a chat after a while and checked I'd survived. She told us that the sculpted stone tablet we'd noticed at the entry to the garden was new and that the words were from a Van Morrison song on his Astral Weeks album.

One of my kind helpers suggested we walk back to Milson's Point via the boardwalk around the harbour, past Luna Park. It proved to be a spectacular way to go.

Ferry to Watson's Bay - lunch at Doyle's - back to Coogee - then on to see An Education at the Randwick Ritz. What a day!!!

Ros and Pete headed back to Sandy Beach this morning, we all headed back to Canberra. Our four days together will be treasured until the next opportunity to meet again!