The pace is slow, the sun is hot, we are moving along, shuffling…. our feet in slow motion, that’s what you get for staying up til two in the morning to watch the beer run out and playing midnight cricket in the street, just a few hours before, some screaming abduction takes place outside waking up those who’d rather be asleep (I did, though, sleep right through it!).

So, we had a rip roaring night and I met another of Broni’s old circle of friends, a guy called Noel, who I chatted to most of the evening. He reminds me of PJ, with his quiet soft spoken voice, so whispery sometimes a struggle to hear. Libby and Dougie their usual mad dog selves, running around feeding us and drinking us (under the table).

The screamings of Woolloomooloo go on around us as we’re tucked in the back yard, away from the eyes of the world but not the eyes of the neighbours, just us and the cockroaches. Stories are spun and topics discussed and we hit politics late on and realise we are too drunk to carry on and already feel the fear of the headache in the morning.

29th Mar 2021 – A few years later Bronwyn witnessed a murder on these streets. As she was sleeping in that top room of Libby’s house, screams woke her and in the morning discovered that a murder had occurred right outside the door. A homeless had been beaten to death. Homeless people were being victimised often around this time as things geared up for the Olympics. A couple of months before the Olympics started all the homeless people were rounded up and dumped in the Blue Mountains and told not to come back until after it was over (or preferably not at all). Bronwyn was later called to testify at the murder trial.