My Sydney trip: Part I

I've been very slack blogger the past week or so...actually,  a very tired blogger to be precise. But tonight I'm going to push through the fatigue. Lots of gleeful stuff has happened and I want to get it out there. 

First up, my much-anticipated day trip to Sydney to see Mark Forsyth, author of The Etymologicon, at the Sydney Writer's Festival.  I arrived in sunny Sydney at around 11.00am, giving me 3.5 hours to fill before seeing Mark.  I had originally planned an inner city ghost sign hunt, but I was exhausted (partly due to excitement-induced insomnia) and my head was aching quite badly (confounded noggin!) so I just um...wondered around the city for hours instead.

I did find one ghost sign in the city, on George Street, if I recall correctly. Well, a tiny bit of a ghost sign. 

Life?

I also came across the graveyard of a demolished building like the one in the Carlton Gardens in Melbourne where fragments of the Colonial Mutual Life Building now lie. I couldn't find anything on site to say what this Sydney building once was. Anyone?

 Thanks to Luke's googling, I now know these things, 

usually found at the top of columns, are called 'capitals'

An old YWCA building?

I eventually made my way to Walsh Bay, nestled near the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I even knew where I was going since I'd wandered about the area when I was in Sydney in  December. 

There's something about this woman that makes me 

suspect she came up from Melbourne too  

Sorry, but I'm going to leave this here without telling you about the Inky Fool event because it's taken me ages to write this and now my brain is worn out. Next time...