What does a summer in Sydney mean to you?
Bare feet, thongs for dressing up (if you have to), stubbed toes, fried and over-salted scallops, cruisy playlists to accompany scallops (can counteract high blood pressure, but consult your own medical specialist), hot sand, scorching concrete , the stubbing of toes not yet stamped, insufferable queues for Bondi coffee (until they magically shrink over Christmas-New Years when locals evacuate to quieter stretches of sand along the coast), our evacuation to a quieter beach, with a long road trip supported by Dad’s playlist and Chiko Rolls in the truck stop (fried if I’m lucky, but reheated dry too often – the bain-marie of my life), and insufferable coffee rows – populated by familiar Bondi faces – on our once sleepy faraway vacation .
Bondi Beach: The sand is hot, but easier on toe stumps.Credit:Getty Images
Earliest memory of summer in Sydney?
The youngest of seven children, I was the one squeezed between the luggage and the roof of the station wagon as we traveled from our home in Bulli to Manly for a beach holiday with our Moree cousins (one family, nine children, presumably two or more station wagons). It was about 1968 on one account, 1971 on the other. A person’s memory is unreliable. I remember we almost drowned when a sandbank collapsed, but a priest, a friend of the family, saved us. Controversially, a cousin (and fellow survivor) tries to correct the record. He says a tragedy almost happened, but it was on another joint family beach holiday in Terrigal, and the beach was Wamberal. My brothers insist it was Manly. This will be settled at another Feneley-Egan meeting, date to be agreed. At least I survived another near tragedy at Manly. My Uncle John is very tall. The ceiling of the holiday home was very low. To greet me, he lifted me up and hoisted me high. My head hit the ceiling. I recovered (mostly).
First place you take visitors?
Bondi Icebergs for lunch or dinner, on the balcony of the club, not Maurice Terzini’s IceBergs Dining Room upstairs, which is excellent, but I prefer not to re-mortgage my house and loved ones for a dinner party. It’s the same billion dollar view below. In a stormy northeast, try the balcony on the North Bondi RSL, the bookend for everyone to the same city beach.
Favorite cafe?
I refuse to have favorites (ask my daughters). Sharing the love: Porche and Parlour, Bondi (for the beach); Gertrude & Alice (for flipping through books while eating); Favoloso, Bronte (local every day).
Gertrude & Alice cafe bookshop in Bondi… not so beachy, but rarely does a patron stub their toe.Credit:Kate Geraghty