SHE lifted up her grubby skirts and flashed her brilliance.

Blinded by the sun sparkling on her waters, I fell for her once again.

I was born and bred there and left a long time ago for quieter, more open spaces. I revisited recently for a wedding.

Ahh, the wedding, too much champagne, not enough canapés, but that’s another story.

Two wonderful things happened to me on that weekend.

I swam in an ocean pool named Bondi Icebergs, (so called because year after year, a group of sturdy, sun browned men chuck great blocks of ice into the water on the first day of winter before jumping in to frolic amongst the ‘Icebergs’, and swim just about every day thereafter).

The other wonderful thing was an article I read in the paper. We’ll get to that later.

I’m anxious to get to the pool.

A giant sandpit

One of the things I promised myself upon leaving the unswimmable waters of Tasmania is a swim in an ocean pool.

It’s a still and sunny day with an expected temperature of 28 degrees. I catch the bus from Surry Hills to the ‘Jungo’, (Bondi Junction for those not familiar with the slang terms of endearment bestowed by Sydneysiders on her special parts).

The Jungo is like a giant sandpit where every 20 years or so, like a cranky, sunburnt kid, she knocks down most of the buildings and constructs bigger and shinier monuments to that insatiable ego of hers.

This time it was the Westfield Plaza reaching skywards, soaring up and away from the asphalt ribbons that criss-cross, bind and constrict this ridiculously overcrowded part of her, the Eastern Suburbs shrine to the shopping gods.

Before Westfield it was Myer, before Myer it was Grace Brothers.

I escape the shiny new sandpit where the shoppers look tired and worn out, and hop onto a 383 heading down Bondi Rd to the beach.

Bondi Rd hasn’t changed, it remains old, Jewish, sprinkled with cake shops, Russian delis and choked by bumper-to-bumper traffic.

We round the bend and there she is. Like a soothing ointment, a magic potion, she makes everything disappear, the traffic, the pollution, the noise and the aggro, all gone. It is her jewel, her ocean.

The old tart looks delicious.

I slowly prowl the perimeter of her pool, soaking in the vista of uninterrupted ocean blue and the blinding whitewash of the walls and bottom, soaking up the rays and rays of glorious melanoma-inducing sun.

This is a fantastic place

I can’t get enough it seems, until I lower myself into her waters and gently swim up and down, the waves crashing over me from the sea on the other side of the wall. I forego goggles and swim with my eyes wide open.

I notice another woman floating on her back after she swims a number of laps. This is a secret pleasure of mine, floating, eyes closed, with the hyper-oxygenation of swimming doing delicious things to my brain.

I approach her.

She stands upright in the water.

“This is a fantastic place, isn’t it?” I say to her.

She looks at me and simply says, “This is one of the most beautiful places in the world.”

The second wonderful thing to happen to me is I read in a Sydney newspaper that her population is declining for the first time in many years.

I feel strangely overjoyed reading this.

I am happy for the old girl, she is going to get a bit of a rest, from the millions of feet trampling over her, the roads multiplying above and below her, the people spitting in her gutters.

One day, maybe when the petrol runs out and bird flu does its work, she may burst through her concrete straitjacket.

Frangipanis might spring up from the cracks in the pavements and bloom profusely all over the shopping malls. The giant Moreton Bay Figs may reclaim the expressways and Sydney will be left with the wind in her trees, the waves on her shore and the birds in her air.

I leave her with the sound of mobile ring tones ringing in my ears and a hangover that takes a week to retreat.

One day I will return to my shabby shantytown mistress and swim in her waters again.