Bowen Street

I returned to the living room of two(dash)seventeen Bowen street Camberwell, home of Grace and Eddie (my maternal grandparents) as well as plenty of my pre/circa/post adolescent memories. It is also the birth place of this Blog - though many of those earlier articles were lost in a tragic but not very note-worthy incident.

When they first moved into the house it was 1988 or maybe 87.
My family had moved into a house just across the park form here on range street. It was my parent's first 'dream house' (according to mum), and my grandparents who had previously stayed in their newly emptied family home, had decided to downsize and move closer to us.

It was here I came to watch starwars, and the place I would have starwars explained in great length and detail to me (I was three); a place where Jake the Snake beat the shit out of hulk hogan with a collapsible chair (and then fed him to his snake) after dinner; a place where I was grounded for half a year during the final days of year twelve; a treasure trove of odd adult pulp fictions, exotic weponary (like my uncle's old air rifle, and a collection of blunt/display combat knives, sabers and a samurai sword), rare LP's and of course (and most memorably) the collection of technicolored 70s pornographic VHS tapes that were always under lock and key.

I pashed my first pash here, and passed out here after my first big night on the piss.
The computer inside still retains lengthy soppy ICQ histories from conversations with (fashionable at the time) aliases like ~pInKieGuRlie^_^ and DarKaNgEl4eVa.

A car pulls into the driveway. ( As many have on many eventful occasions over the last 20 years.)

It's Kim's Holden.

Grace politely offers some juice or 'cider'- but the non alcoholic kind you'd expect grandparents to offer. 'You forgot this' Eddie says holding up a blue CD. 'I didn't , it's yours' I reply. I glance at kim, who is snickering covertly.

that night, I'm on 59k - a window seat.

The Aircraft is particularly humid and the flight quite non eventful. the Guy next to me, a tall Moby-looking physiotherapist is talking to me about our futures. He's bound for London to find his love, and eventually return there for a year to work, he thinks Singapore is the city of the future and that in 30 years time all big cities will be modeled on it. I agree but am not too convinced. I start work tomorrow and had left Kim a rather soppy SMS (as SMSes go) as I'd left the terminal before.

I'd been christmas day 24 hours before and we'd been trying to coax Kim's little cousin into entertianing us for a little while. 'Lets go for a walk (cigarette)' says Kim (rather resigned ) to myself and Clare. So we take a walk round the block though a rather incandescent christmas afternoon, kicking small acorns across the pavement while Kim thralls a rather domesticated reed she'd plucked before across various picket fences. She still thinks I look more like a stingray than a Panda. I do my stingray face (which makes her chuckle in an unpolite way.)

As her Holden pulls away from the front steps, Grace's eye's are pink and she's on the verge of tears. I wave to her form the rear window - at which point I wish I could have taken her with me or just held her for half an hour. It was only yesterday afternoon that they'd fought over what channels to watch - Eddie's into MTV and Grace likes Cartoons. 'you just skipped over the best part' she yells at Eddie, who'd briefly flicked over to the Video Hits Christmas special to check if Wham had finished and Mariah Carey had come back on. She was visibly upset about not finding out how timmy had been saved from the Lavapit. 'You're so selfish' she yells 'inconsiderate!' at which point Eddie quickly flicks back to her cartoon. 'She's started watching cartoons again,' he explains, 'she really likes those japanese ones with the pretty eyes'.

I'm in her arms, and she's thanking me for bring her back soggy hash browns and poached eggs.

How do I deserve love like this?

I'm not sure.

I tell Kim I'll see her in February. And give Adelle a big hug and before that Clare, and the night before Jackson and Stephen, and the morning before Dawsey and before that Dom and Michael, and Eddie and Bebe, Robyn, Ian, Grace, Liz, Gigi, Brian, Carrina, Jess, Dad, Chloe, Mum, Canjida, Rosaline, Sean et.al. Hug after hug after hug, until Kim again at tullamarine. She tells me how she can't believe it'll be a while till I'd next be back there in melborune.

My boots are heavy as we walk away from each other.

See you soon.