Syd-er-ney!

This week will end well.... in Sydney. I am off to my old home city for a weekend of dining, wandering, shopping, sipping and chatting with two of my oldest school friends. One is flying from Tasmania, the other from Queensland and we're meeting in the middle without the seven children we now have between us.  These girls can shop and I suspect I'll be left flailing in their wake... or sneaking off for a swim!

Everyone has their own list when they hit a city like Sydney. Mine is pretty firmly focused on catching up with old Sydney friends and then tripping about my old suburb Paddington and those surrounding it - Surry Hills, Woollahra and a little further away, my favourite Bronte beach.

I'm going to stop at cafes and eat at the Bourke Street Bakery - their savoury rolls are worth crossing continents for... and even their website is worth a look - it's beautiful...

We'll have cocktails and dinner on Saturday night and a quieter catch up on Friday. If I can squeeze it in then the Bondi to Bronte coastal walk or a circuit of Centenniel Park will ease the guilt - actually I don't get food guilt  - but it will clear the mind.

I'm going to shop for shoes and linger in boutiques. I'm going to try things on and get honest opinions from old friends and not miss the little boy pulling Houdini-like moves underfoot in the cubicle.

I'm going to indulge my love of battered/pre-loved/vintage bits at very unthrifted prices. I like my tatt well styled - at least when browsing. Doug up on Bourke is a goldmine of Australiana and other collectable and covetable bits. I have always had a thing for shoe lasts and wooden spools.

Ici et la oozes French vintage style with an industrial edge. They also sell the most wonderful striped fabrics, deckchairs, cushions and stools.  Tres chic.

For old times sake I'd like to pop to Paddington Market on Saturday, we used to have a hot chocolate and play on the playground most weekends - all the shoppers took up all the parking in our street, I don't miss that so much.

I'd hover over Samantha Robinson's stall eyeing off her ceramic loveliness. Now she has her own shop and exports here to NZ.

I have a couple of cups (blue and white of course) but never bought her paper thin ceramic candle holders - I just couldn't imagine them surviving all the moves we do. Perhaps one day...

I also like the look of Bison.

It's a new arrival on Oxford Street - well new to me... just up the hill from Dinosaur Designs and the sushi at Toko, the chocolates at Just William, the window at Collette Dinnigan, the cafe food at Alimentari and the walk down to Five Ways, the houses in Jersey Road and the back streets to Woollahra and genteel Queen Street with its banker wife blondes and dapper gay men in cashmere.

The list my friends goes on and on...