Time out from The Matrix

Most of The Matrix was filmed in Sydney. You wouldn’t know it because they didn’t show any of the big landmarks. I remember watching it for the first time a few years ago, continuously pausing the tape as I looked out my apartment window matching up the buildings on screen to the skyline outside.

The last few weeks of 2018 were pretty busy, so it was great to step out of the office on Friday the 21st, head straight to the airport and jump on a flight back to England.

I had a very quiet Christmas and New Year. I stayed with my parents in our family home in Leyland and for the most part I didn’t venture far, which was exactly what I needed.

Jess gave me Australian coffee for Christmas so I got to play amateur barista with the espresso machine I bought a couple of years ago.

Dad and I went to Crosby Beach to see Antony Gormley’s Another Place. In 2016, I was out running around the lake in Canberra and to my delight found the National Gallery of Australia have a scale model of the Angel of the North in their garden.

I went down to London for a day. I met with our Austrade team in Australia House, had coffee and talked platforms with Richard, then caught up with some former colleagues from DIT.

I bought quite a few books. (How can you walk into Foyles on Charing Cross Road and not leave without buying at least one book?) I was going to read some of them but I also bought a Nintendo Switch before Christmas and somehow all my free time since then has evaporated. But I’m mid-way through Bit Rot by Douglas Coupland and it is really quite interesting.

In December I went around telling people the joys of a British winter: wrapping up warm and walking through fields on a fresh crisp morning, only to stumble across a quaint old pub with a roaring fire, some real ale, and a pie. It was a bit like that. (We went to The Inn at Whitewell and it comes pretty close.)

But of course it’s lovely to be back in Sydney’s summer. It’s 30 degrees and we went to the beach yesterday. Sorry all.