Friends in far places

No one else has ever taken a "picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge" quite like this.

That's half my head on the left there, and about a third of photographer-extraordinaire-Jodie's head there on the right. And in the background you can see exactly none of the Harbour Bridge, which we were aiming to highlight. Nice.

The one below is a bit better – lacks the pizazz our faces would've lent to the scene (!) but it's a sort of moody view across the rooftops of The Rocks towards the Opera House. Jodie took me to The Rocks, a piece of history I've wanted to visit ever since I read Playing Beattie Bow when I was twelve.

But I'm getting this all back to front, really.

Jodie, of Meringue fame, is a friend-I'd-never-met despite a good year or more of almost daily emails. We fixed the never-met bit over drinks one night with Stuart, my childhood next-door neighbour and sometime partner-in-crime, and his work mate Paul.

I should mention that Jodie drove up to Sydney from Melbourne, and that Jodie and Stuart and Paul know each other through Facebook, and that I had never met Paul and hadn't seen Stuart in at least 15 years. It all gets a bit involved, really.

Anyway, to get such unprecedented freedom (more than two hours! at night!) I left the kids with poor mum at the hotel, and Kickbaby yelled for a solid hour. He has his preferences, and I am one of them.

The next morning Jodie and I had a Very Important International Business Meeting with Simone Walsh at Bill's. I don't have a picture of that. Simone said almost before we sat down There will be no pictures and I must have been feeling especially acquiescent that morning, because my ever-ready camera stayed in my purse. I regret that now.

I've got no excuse for not taking any pictures of Jodie and me at The Rocks or down on the harbour. None at all.

I did get this beauty, though. On a bustling street right in Darlinghurst, there was a little apartment above a newsagent, topped with what looked like a rooftop refugee camp. The picture can't do justice to the crazy low-rent clutter that filled that tiny space.

And one more from The Rocks... and still none of Jodie and me. Maybe next time.