Too darn hot

As he emerges blinking into the dazzling light of the new year, Tom peers around him…behold! The same old shit!

Well, not entirely. I am after all in a new job as of today, Faculty Liaison Librarian at the University of Sydney. First impressions are good; friendly staff, well-equipped library, attractive campus and so on. Now I have to get my head around the various policies and procedures, and get clued up on my specialist areas of sports science and occupational therapy.

Christmas and New Year were, predictably, marvellous. My sister Amy and her husband James arrived safely on Dec 22nd and stuck around for a couple of weeks. They enjoyed getting to know Beth and spending Christmas with the Player clan, as well as taking in the New Year fireworks on Sydney Harbour.

They also very kindly took us on a 3-day houseboat trip on the beautiful Hawkesbury River. It’s one of those things that you always think “I must get round to that sometime”, so to actually do it was a real treat. The heat was a problem for Beth at first, until we developed a technique of filling up a plastic dive tub with river water and plonking her in it on the bow of the boat.

In fact the weather here has been ridiculous – on New Year’s Day it was 44 FRIGGIN’ DEGREES! That’s the second hottest Sydney day on record, way way too hot for a pathetic pom like me. Thank Jehovah for a cool swimming pool and air con on max.

Beth is coping with her usual aplomb, and can now officially be said to be crawling. She is extremely intent on getting around the place and causing mischief, so I reckon she’s going to be a real handful from now on.

Arts-wise it’s obviously been a bit quiet. I’ve read a few bits, including the splendid The Line of Beauty and the charming The Silent Traveller in London, plus some Wodehouse stuff. Virtually no film action except A Town Like Alice (v good) but a change is gonna come now I have access to these university libraries – woohoo!

Great beard of Zeus!