A month of Sundays : How to go travelling without Leaving Town

A humorous and honest account of how the author spent a month exploring his home city, going to many out-of-the-way places with his partner and young child, and learned to enjoy the present rather than worry about the past. At 7 a.m. on Monday 1 September 2003, the day Lucy and I celebrated our eighth not-married-but-together anniversary, we were in bed with our ten-month-old daughter Bibi lying chaperone between us when the crash of breaking glass startled us awake. Bibi wailed. I jumped out of bed and crept to the window; three men were attacking the house next door with sledgehammers and crowbars. I sighed. It had begun. James O'Loghlin was concerned. His once-peaceful mornings would now be full of dust, loud radio and miscellaneous smashing from the demolition and rebuilding going on next door. Then came the idea: each morning James and his family would explore their own city. Between the three of them they'd lived in Sydney a lifetime, but it was full of places they hadn't seen and things they'd never done. It was time to do some catching up. Surely you can't have new experiences and feel the wide-eyed excitement travel offers in a city where you've lived for twenty years or can you? A Month of Sundays is a funny and personal account of what James found when he ran away from home each day and went looking for peace, fun and the mysteries behind the dating rituals of the whipbird. It's also the story of how he tried to answer to the biggest question of them all: how the hell do I live my life? Title page......Page 3 Contents......Page 7 1 The invasion......Page 9 2 A bad place to busk......Page 17 3 Two jewels in legoland......Page 25 4 The wild man of manly......Page 34 5 Powerful silvers......Page 43 6 A bit of east in the west......Page 59 7 Obsession......Page 70 8 A ferry to Rydalmere......Page 82 9 Chemicals......Page 100 10 Loudspeakers in paradise......Page 106 11 Sticking our necks out......Page 120 12 Storming the battlement......Page 134 13 The dealer's mum......Page 151 14 Trimmed sideburns......Page 167 15 Divided in death......Page 179 16 Goths in the sun......Page 190 17 The more you have.........Page 197 18 Empty balconies......Page 208 Epilogue......Page 219 Acknowledgements......Page 223 A humorous and honest account of how James O'Loghlin spent a month exploring his home city of Sydney, going to many out-of-the-way places with his partner and young child, and learned to enjoy the present rather than worry about the past.