Three reasons why I like Sydney ...

... it's been almost 7 years since Mr Brown & I moved from the bush capital, Canberra, to Sydney. I was very much against the move - I pretty much cried for a week when Mr Brown announced that the move was basically necessary (that or living off my pathetic wage, no way that was going to happen). But, we moved and I figured it was best I make the most of a bad thing. Three things started me looking at Sydney in a more "friendly" way:

1. Once we moved into the Brown-Mouse house, the first weekend, I did a little light laundry. It was August, the middle of wet & miserable cold winter back home. My washing was out and dried the same day. This was UNHEARD of at the same time of year in Canberra.
2. Same weekend, sitting out in the back garden in the winter sunshine. The garden seethed with skinks. Little copper chappies from teeny to quite large (for skinks). I was thrilled. We had no wildlife of any kind (not counting ants and non-native bees) in the garden back in Canberra. I love the skinks and get a kick every time I hear a rustle in the leaf litter, I look down & it's a skink, dashing off somewhere skink-ily important.
3. My first walk home from the bus stop, in the dark (August, remember). I was going up the street and I heart this soft "whafta-whoosh" above my head. I looked up and almost within touching distance a fruit bat flew overhead. I couldn't believe it, a real live fruit bat, in my street! Almost as exciting as finding a bebe wallaby had wandered into my cabin in a Tasmanian rain forest. Suburban Sydney just didn't seem so bad after that.

Of course many things since have made me realise Sydney isn't so bad really (possums in the garden, blue-tongued lizards at the front gate, an owl at the front door, the shops OMIF, the shops), but those three things helped me on my way to accepting that Sydney was not the epitome of evil and that I just might survive living here after all.

And one reason why I don't ...

... Walking up or down Pitt St or George St to or from the station to or from work - the ghastly smell of vomit every now and again. Every morning or evening. makes me gag.