Joan Lane and Marie Street, Belmore on Wednesday, 12 August 2020

Joan Lane is very close to Canterbury Road at the backside of a new apartment block. In the parking area, I notice two young women in a car, smoking, and talking on the phone. I decide to let them drive away first. People get suspicious when you loiter around their homes. After a little walk, I find them still there. They are not going anywhere, just sitting in the car. I imagine it’s a way to get out of the house or to get away from someone who’s home too often.

Canterbury Road has changed a lot. Not that I ever knew it very well out here, but it was mainly old. Now there are many new buildings and the remaining small old shops are mostly empty, dark and looking sad. They will be gone too very soon and you wouldn’t even have a trace left of that old road. At the end of Joan Lane is an empty lot, waiting to be developed.

From the verandah of the corner house, a big fabric monkey is watching everything.

In Marie Street, I think of a rallying call from the French Revolution: “War to the palaces, peace to the cottages.”