One evening recently looking out onto passing trains I noticed one of the neighbours from the house next door throwing slices of old bread into the grassy area behind the apartment building. This backs onto a fence which in turn has bushes narrow strip of briars behind it to the train tracks. Who does that, basically emptying food rubbish into someone else's garden!? When I looked out later in the evening some of the bread seemed to have disappeared. But then I noticed right at that moment some of the bread was being taken away by what I thought first was a cat but then noticed was actually much bigger. I've never seen a badger in real life, bar maybe at a zoo, so it was very odd to see one methodically picking up slices of bread, one at a time, from the grass and bring them through the railway fence into the bushes beyond. And I especially didn't think city badgers existed, or at least ones that made a living shoulder to shoulder with foxes in tiny parcels of waste ground.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Sydney Wildlife park in Darling Harbour and found the place a little underwhelming; some exhibits were closed and the tickets were feckin expensive. There were koalas and wallabies but mostly lizards and snakes who didn't feel like opening their eyes and moving for our amusement. However, the ticket gates were broken when we entered meaning we had a free ticket to go back. So last weekend we did, this time a few hours before closing - Wombats and cliff wallabies and weird birds and butterflies - it was all pretty cool. When I was little I always found birds at zoos and in parks pretty boring, but I guess I've become more appreciative in my old age and have to say now, birds are class.. On a Sunday stroll we also finally found two of the oldest pubs in Sydney, in the Rocks area at the base of the Harbour Bridge. The pubs, the Hero of Waterloo and Lord Nelsons Brewery Hotel, compete with some others in the area for the title (a whopping 150 odd years old). Both were nice to step into and out of the harsh Sydney winter, and in the case of the Lord Nelson, serve their own beer from the microbrewery on site.