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[peterbowes]

yin and yang

He had a straggly grey beard that drooped about six inches down on both sides of his mouth, Zapata style, plus he wearing clothes that needed plenty of hard-armed work in  a laundry tub. Add to that his skinny-legged jeans, old wrinkled and nasty, a colourless shirt and thin-soled thongs on his very old unclean feet. This old lad, as so mercilessly described was standing by a seat outside the…

[peterbowes]

Meet the owner

For dinner we ordered Caesar Salad .. a simple dish, uncomplicated and always served with a mounting of anchovies, of which there were none on either of our plates. The waiter was asked why not and he relayed our enquiry into the kitchen whereupon an angry little man erupted from his ovens, approached our table and lifted both my dinner and fork and plumbed it for the depths of what appeared to…

[peterbowes]

how it can all go wrong.

This is about food, hotel suites, service and the promise of a dinner served exactly as per  described in the hotel menu. This, in an almost deserted restaurant down Opal Cove way, a Coffs Harbour retreat advertising uncompromising ocean views and gourmet meals. We arrived, were shown a seat, ordered our drinks and waited. Then, when the drinks waiter arrived with them he didn’t hesitate in…

[peterbowes]

midget memorialised

Midget was an easy bloke to like and was very easy on the eye when in the water, fluid and graceful, stylish. Now his image has been carved in a large boulder up at Palm Beach. In other words, as long as everyone keeps their fingers off the nuclear button and the oceans don’t rise too high the rock with Midget’s image  carved into it will be around for thousands of years. Imagine that. But, you…

[peterbowes]

poison

‘Mum, ‘ he asked, ‘can I go down to the local adult shop and look at some stuff?’ He’s eleven. ’No, you can’t,’ ’Why not?’ ’Because it’s not suitable for children.’ So he goes into his bedroom and fires up his iPad .. and there, courtesy of the richest men in the world is a universe of deep depravity He’s eleven. Just a boy. How do I claim him back?  

[peterbowes]

Geoff

He’s been missing, that old lad with his idiosyncratic limp walk seen walking up and back the beach most mornings: he’s missing for the last week.. the lanky old bugger, always smiling. This gets to you when your twenty young years gets multiplied by four .. when the missing in action almost fills a ledger of old mates. So many gone. But today in the distance, gimping along as he has always has…

[peterbowes]

yesterday, north narrabeen

Something is not right here .. in fact it’s horribly wrong.

[peterbowes]

the last great treasure hunt

This morning a million dollars worth of packaged cocaine was found washed up on Curl Curl and Freshie beaches (see pic). This happy event has resulted in the carparks of both beaches being packed to capacity today by hundreds of cars originating from Sydney’s eastern suburbs: Mercedes, Audis, Alfa Romeos, Lexus, Aston Martins, Lamborghinis and more strangely, the beaches and headlands looked to…

[peterbowes]

stuey

Stuey runs the local papershop and lately he’s been regularly losing his toes because of severe diabetes, one gone every couple of months and because of this and the subsequent deterioration of his golf game Stuey decided to sell the newspaper business which is a real shame because over the years I’ve been able to unsettle the old bastard on a regular basis, which is what he is, an old bastard,…

[peterbowes]

a piece of string

This is Arthur Stace at work on a Sydney footpath, his copperplate script of the word Eternity had appeared regularly on the city streets from 1932 to 1966 and like me we both thought the word and the concept were fully steeped in mystery. How could something be forever? Time and life are explicit. They end. A man is walking down the path to the beach, a grandson at his side, the kid’s a…

[peterbowes]

Overheard …

Two men beachside. Carpark. Not old. Not young. Not in-between. ‘So, what’s happening?’ ‘Not much, just passing through.’ ‘To where?’ ‘North, Queensland way, hoping to score a few long ones.’ ‘Bit crowded up there there lately they reckon.’ ‘So they say.’ A lithe young woman wearing a string bikini walks by, hardly noticed. ‘So where’s the plan?’ A five wave set rolls in, all clean and precise…

[peterbowes]

frankey

Sometimes if a surfer was strolling along a certain street in Amsterdam with nothing much on his mind but a broodje gezond (salad roll) for lunch he might look up at a nondescript shop awning and be rewarded by something entirely unexpected. Gallery

[peterbowes]

the wilderness of a wave ..

Swellnet and I have an old and valued relationship, Stu Nettle in particular with both of us and a few literary inclined others trying to do the impossible many years ago and start up a surfing magazine with a difference. Stu writes for the Swellnet site every day, day after day, year after year .. and I’m not blowing smoke when I can say that this practice makes him all the more readable. Stu…

[peterbowes]

images

There is a swanky resort hotel up on the Goldie spit and after spotting a couple of pictures decorating a wall I thought to share them with you …

[peterbowes]

co-op etiquette

Prawns are the go up here as are crabs, bugs, lobsters, oysters and all manner of fish – if it swims we’ll eat it- plus we are a simple and obedient folk up here on the Richmond and when the chalkboard sign just inside the front door of the co-op says’ WAIT HERE UNTIL TO BE CALLED’ … We wait. Obedience is a virtue. Hunger temporarily denied more so. The shop is alive with customers and we worry…

[peterbowes]

the oldest man I know

John Beeman lives in the adjoining apartment and is reconciling himself to moving out with his wife of 71 years and into a 2 bed one bath by the river when all his life he and his wife Rosemary have had the room to paint in their roomy studio. This artist. Those artists. He’s approaching 97, she’s 93. I can hear him dismantling his studio through the shared wall. The slow and measured…

[peterbowes]

ask yourself the question

This Or this ..