Sydney - conned!

Today was a true summer's day in Sydney and my guard was down. It sounded idyllic, a quiet coffee with bro before catching a bus to beautiful Paddington to have lunch with friends at a nice pub-restaurant, the London Inn. Then to finish the day, a movie at my favourite cinema at circular quay, and later a RV with H. at City Extra.

Sydney is so seductive on days like these. Thirty degrees or thereabouts, not too humid, and a holiday atmosphere with the Sydney Festival in full swing. Tourists everywhere, and I suppose I was one of them. Alighting from my bus at Taylor Square, I quickly transferred to another to drop me at Glenmore Road, en route to Patsy's.

 Glenmore Road is a lovely winding tree-lined street, threading through the exquisite streets of this expensive inner suburb. I remember a French School in the vicinity from my last visit and drop by to get a comparison of their fees for the coming year. More than twice I am going to charge I notice, so I take a brochure to confirm  my bargain offer for this coming year in Wellington.

As I turn away I am approached ever so gently by a youngish man in shorts, carrying a bag and also two small plastic bags of choc-chip cookies. He tell me his Mum made them and told him to get out and sell them to make some money. They look quite nice and I believe him somehow, as he looks a bit sad, but as I only have a fifty dollar note I fear there is a problem. But no, he looks into his sack and pulls out a bag of two-dollar coins,  and also some five dollar notes. Feeling generous, I offer to take two bags for five dollars. He quickly counts out twenty dollars in notes then it seems like twenty five dollars in coins. I pocket the bickies thinking I can offer them after lunch to my friends. But I have a slight feeling that my fifty is now more than somewhat reduced.  Later at the pub when paying for my lovely quinoa salad, I count out what I thought was forty-five dollars and now see it is only thirty-five. How this innocent transaction resulted in the the sleuthing of ten bucks I still can't fathom, but put it down to Sydney in season...this is perhaps significantly why I  am not living here. Sophisticated Sydney is each to own own, and forget how you get it. Lesson for the day, be happy I am only here for a few days to avoid similar occurrences happening to a newly naive Kiwi.

But onto the nice part, the lunch with P and her friends C and E, who have just written an E-book on saving the environment from the point of view of a Samoyed dog called Lahni. It was quite an effort, and illustrated also by E with digital paintings. It's on sale on the net at 'LahnisMission', for fifteen dollars. I will look in to it on my return when I feel richer! LoL!

Having a coffee outside the Dendy Cinema at the quay.