Staycations: Same, same but refreshingly different
Following some recent staycations, it’s become apparent you don’t have to travel far for a contrary perspective.
I have come to terms with that word staycation, and its dastardly abbreviation staycay. Such capitulation is not because I approve of such interference with the English language but it’s now apparent that holidaying close to home is a fine concept.
I’ve been staycaying (sigh) quite a bit to clock up features for our In Residence series, venturing no more than four hours from my front door and, most recently, for less than a quarter of that time. In the process, it’s become apparent you don’t need to go far to find a sense of differentness and a contrary perspective.
So, for the latest review, I drive 20 minutes along a route that I take most weekends to a favourite mall. It feels like going to the shops but not arriving. What, here already?
I am on the other side of an expanse of water I know well but have never paused long enough to view from an opposite angle. It looks so different. Well, not as different as if I’d teleported to Lake Como, but sort of back to front and possessed of unusual contours, aspects and even colours. The sun appears to be setting in a strange place, the water is a more nuanced blue than at the bay I have left behind.
Even the birdlife seems more abundant. I spy a cormorant, a glossy male mallard and his dowdy harem, and more seagulls than inhabit my patch across the way. It’s a splendid new spot from which to appreciate this estuary. For the record, it’s Brisbane Water, which tips into Broken Bay and is nowhere near Queensland.
Even the shops look more exotic because of their newness. I feel like a traitorous thrill-seeker as I buy fruit and veg someplace other than my usual store. I purchase an artichoke, just because I can. I don’t even like artichokes but the act feels foreign and kind of reckless.
Then I negotiate the queue at a hitherto unknown pastry shop and discover buns so puffy and creamy and surely illicit that the fun police must have banned such kilojoule-laden nonsense from my neighbouring neck of the water. I have invited friends in for a drinks soiree, some of whom are neighbours who take the roads I drove earlier and manage to get lost; they couldn’t believe they’d need GPS advice. One chap says he rides his bike around the waterway every day but hadn’t ever clocked the street names. Because of this, a few are fashionably late.
As we stand on the deck and consult a map and argue about east and west, we laughingly agree we just love staycays. I send off these locals after a few hours to find their way home. “First turn to the left and just keep driving!” is my airy advice as they farewell the great unknown.
