Good, Cheap Furniture

---

Good, Cheap Furniture

This morning Abby and I went out on our jog. As we ran along the promenade I began to notice a smell. Then it became an odor. Finally it spiraled into a foul funk. I noticed people around me making faces and covering their noses. It was like jogging through a thousand sweaty feet that had been in a thousand damp socks.

That determined for us that we would not play at the beach during the day, but rather go out some place to play. My neighbor told me later that they were spraying manure somewhere nearby. If that’s true then they must feed their cows moldy socks that wet dogs have slept on - - that was no normal manure smell.

So Abby and I went off to Centennial Park to play. Yes, the park as large as Rhode Island, though as it turns out, it’s actually 360 hectares, which is 900 acres. (By contrast, Central Park in NYC is around 843 acres). This time we went prepared and well provisioned. All we had to do was take the 380 bus directly to the park gates, no additional walks were necessary, I was completely ready.
When we climbed on the bus the driver said. “To the park? Fare’s 2.70.”
I said, “Last time it was just 1.60.”
“Well,” he paused looking at me, balanced in the tiny bus stairs holding a stroller, large diaper bag and Abby, with what seemed like a clear lack of sympathy, “it’s 2.70.”
“Well,” I stared back working myself into a nice snit, “I haven’t got 2.70, so just take me to Bondi Junction and we’ll walk the rest of the way.”
So we proceeded to Bondi Junction.
But I’d misread him. When we got there he turned around and said, “Just stay on and I’ll drive you to the park gates.”
I was startled but relieved and gave him a big un-snitty smile. He then reached forward and pulled out a big brochure looking thing and handed it to me.
“Here, you may want to take a look at this.”
“Thanks,” I said as brightly as I could. I figured it was a timetable with fares ands zones and was just his way of encouraging me to not mistake the fares again.
In fact it was an IKEA catalog.
“Hmmmmm,” I said not knowing what it implied. Did I look like someone short on furniture? I mean, we are. We have exactly three pieces of non-bed furniture in our ‘furnished’ apartment, but was it that obvious? So I just finally said, “Thank you.”
He nodded. “Good, cheap furniture. Nice stuff you know?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“They sell just about everything eh? Fantastic!” He seemed slightly obsessed.
I flipped through the pages and oohed and ahhed a bit to show him that I agreed it was pretty darn fantastic. Those crazy Swedes and their crazy fantastic furniture.
And then, we were at the park gates and he let us out.
“Thanks again for driving us to the gates and,” I paused, “for the catalog.”
“No worries.” And he drove off.

Centennial Park is great when you are prepared for its scale. The upside to all the space is that there is something for absolutely everyone. You can even pick your own climate. We walked though a cool and dark pine grove and an open, hot ‘Brazilian’ field. We played on rocks in a big boulder area and walked through the lowland swamp area where there were ponds for model boats, ponds for fishing and ponds for hostile water fowl.

Eventually we ate lunch in the middle of a formal garden, aptly named the Rose Garden, under a Royal Palm. The park is so large you can have entire quadrants, or rose gardens as the case may be, entirely to yourself. Abby was almost hit by a low-flying Cockatoo that, more than aggressive just seemed perhaps a bit blind. Other than that it was an uneventful lunch. Best of all the air was manure-free and I had a catalog to peruse while we sat and ate. It was . . . fantastic.

---

Comments

[Joanna]

Battle of Ikea
"My friend had grabbed a leather sofa only to have to give it up to a man who threatened her with a wooden mallet." Esther...check out this link to this article. I guess a lot of people find Ikea 'fantastic'. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/11/nikea11.xml

[GJJ]

IKEA
Oh yeah. The GLIS is great. The KRISTER is cool. And the MORGON...magnificent! But, frankly, the SNILLE is a bit silly.

[Flying Penguin]

Please keep blogging
Hello from Vancouver, Canada! Here it's pouring rain but your first days in sunny Sydney make me smile. Looking forward to more of your entries. Best of luck to you guys!!!

[Rach]

can't argue w/ good cheap furniture
but all I want to know is: how much was the bus fare home?

[Flying Penguin]

Bus pass
Hey, Esther! I just thought buying a bus pass could be a really neat idea, since your area is well-connected by bus routes. If you ride the bus every day, you could generally travel the second half of the month for free. At least that's the way it works here in Vancouver. Furthermore, it encourages people to take the bus more often, and you save again and again. So it's something worth considering. Then you guys could perhaps explore Northern Beaches, such as Curl Curl and Dee Why. I've heard they're pretty cool.