Wet Tuesday

David appears at the study door, this morning, with a zoosh sound effect and a hand flurry, just as I'm turning my computer off. He says that is the sound of Siberia, it is so cold.

I'm heading along Gertrude Street and it is freezing. I call David, to confirm with him that it is, indeed, Siberia outside.

"The wind is like razor blades cutting through my clothes."

He laughs. "I told you."

"It really is Siberia, out here," I said. "You won't want to leave the house."

"I don't intend to."

8.33am. A tram is on its way up Gertrude Street, from Smith. Is it the empty one, I think. Is it the empty one? I always aim for the empty one, without so much luck. It glides in next to me and I see, pretty quickly, that it is, clearly, not the empty tram – there is a tram around 8.30 that will appear empty amongst the busy trams. Don't know why, it is a phenomenon. The 8.30 tram syndrome – must be something to do with coming between the tail-end of the early people and the beginnings of the late people. The empty tram must be the eye of the storm.

This should have been the empty one, I think, the time is about right. I would have got on. May be it was the tram before? I look back down Gertrude Street. I remain on the footpath, slack-jawed, but not moving toward the open tram-car's doors. They are in there like sardines. Jesus! I'll walk instead of fighting with the morning punters. 8.35am, what do I care if I am late. It makes no never mind, any more.

How many more sleeps?

I catch the tram at Spring Street. As I turn the corner into Bourke, I could run for the 86 sitting at the stop, ready to go, but decide not to be hypocritical. I'm often critical of the morning punters who just keep running for trams at tram stops; eventually they have to think of the other people, whose rides they are slowing down, just so they can be the one-more-person squeezed on. I steady myself and wait for the next tram.

The next tram is one of the very new yellow, borrowed from the French, trams and I'm secretly pleased about that. I purve at the hairy chest on the pretty boy in a suit with no tie, standing by me, until a seat becomes vacant and I forget all about Tarzan's chest... stubble. A seat that wouldn't be a seat at all, in the other new trams. Standing space only. So, I'm secretly pleased about that, too, getting to sit in a completely new seat on a Bourke Street tram. You don't get to do that every day.