Bondi Local | Diana Prichard

Bondi Local | Diana Prichard

We met Dee in 2002. Our kids were attending the same Bronte Public School at the time. She has become a good friend, and we’ve shared many experiences.

Melanie talked to Dee in the foyer of the Bondi Pavilion.

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Hi Dee. Thank you for being a part of our Bondi Fresh Daily project.

Anytime!

First of all, can we please get a little bit of your background.

I had my childhood in Sydney, in Wahroonga, on the North Shore. It was semi-rural back in the 60s. My friend Samantha’s pony was on agistment up the road at the nunnery. There was a market garden next to the East Wahroonga shops. And a creek divided the properties. It was really like living in the country back then. And I’d say it was an idyllic childhood.

When I was 13 we moved to England. My father worked for a Dutch company all his life and was moved around a bit. We moved to England and it was so dreary! Living in Surrey for a teenager wasn’t the best at the time so every weekend we’d go up to London, and that was when punk was exploding onto the scene. So then we’d turn up at our school dances dressed in black plastic bags fastened with safety pins. I think I was more interested in the fashion than the music.

I returned to Australia when school finished and went to Sydney Uni first but had too much fun so dropped out and travelled. I came back and went to what was then the Institute of Technology Sydney to do a communications degree. I’ve worked as a magazine journalist ever since. That would’ve been the 80s, and then the 90s we moved to Tasmania which was also an amazing experience, and I had my babies there, Louis and Gabe. In the Naughties we moved back to Sydney and landed in Bondi and I’ve been here ever since.

So why did you choose Bondi?

We wanted to live near the water and so we were looking from Manly down to Maroubra. Initially we were in Bronte and we loved Bronte but it was a little bit whitebread. Then we came to Bondi and we loved the grittiness, literally of Bondi. It was a more interesting melting pot, multiculturally-wise.

I just love Bondi. I love that it’s the edge of the country. I love living on the edge. I love bathing in the ocean and I love being covered in salt. And I just love this Bondi Bay, it’s like a big salty cardigan that I can wrap around me.

What would you consider your Bondi beat?

We come down regularly to the beach and for a while there I was walking in the soft sand trying to get a lovely Brazilian butt.

Which you’ve achieved!

And we’ll always swim in that little northern end and if the current sweeps us out to the boat ramp so be it. We’ll get a coffee from Speedos and go sit up on that bench on the grassy knoll and enjoy that looking over the water. Often we’ll go to the Bondi Icebergs Club that my friend Lynne recently put me back onto. It’s such a great place to meet someone for a drink and just sit out on the veranda there. You feel like you’re armchair surfing! It’s great! You feel like you’re on the wave with your glass of Prosecco. And then for special occasions we’ll go to Brown Sugar which I just love.

Do you have the fish pie?

I do but I also try other things. But we do go back to the fish pie. I should try to emulate that.

And I come down to the Pavilion all the time. I always pop into the gallery here. There are often great exhibitions on and I love how people wander in with the dogs and their surfboard dripping, and the kids squealing on scooters. I love it.

You’ve mentioned a few places you like to go out and eat. Do you have any other faves?

We went to Drake recently for a birthday dinner and I would return there. I’d say that was another special occasion place. It’s unpretentious, I like it. We’re more about getting the takeaway coffee and sitting up on the grass and just enjoying the sky and the water and the headland. I’ll meet friends at Birichina for a coffee. We cross all borders in Bondi, we go to the south end for Birichina and the Icebergs Club, and the middle of the beach to The Bucket List sometimes and to Sonoma for the coffee there and then at the north end it’s pretty much Speedo’s. But Because we live here Bondi we actually eat around the corner at chez moi.

I hear it’s the best in town!

Tell us, what are you excited about at the moment?

Thank you for asking that question! I’m excited that I have gone to three days at Bauer [Media Group] a week. And two days a week I’m now painting intensively. I’m really enjoying painting rappers! And landscapes. The rappers started because my son Gabe had asked for a painting of Gucci Mane, who’s the Godfather of Atlanta hip-hop, for his birthday last November. And so I painted him and he was my second Instagram post and suddenly Klass Money really liked it – he’s a Miami hip-hop artist. I’ve also painted Lil Yachty, Migos and Young Thug from Atlanta. 

You’re going to become the Atlanta hip-hop expert!

Thank you! And then Makinout from the Bronx asked me to do a painting of him and then Iiiconic in Brisbane asked me to do something for him. I also did one recently who Gabe has done a video for, B Wise, a rapper from Western Sydney [video HERE]. So there’s been a bit of interest and it’s really exciting and what’s more, it helps to justify financially going three days at Bauer and two days painting. And I’m loving it! We’ve got the Cancer Council’s Breakthrough Art Festival at the aMBUSH Gallery, Central Park in May which is a  fundraiser. I’m doing landscapes for them. And then I’m doing an art show with my friend Helene Rosenove, who’s a photographer, for the Gosford Regional Gallery. She has photographed artists’ studios, the interiors without the artists, and I’m writing something which is like the portrait of the artist in the written word.

So there’s lots to look forward to!

Now tell us what you are reading and/or watching at the moment if you have time because it doesn’t sound like you do!

Well I’ve actually got the lonely planet guide to Sicily on my bedside table.

Oh another thing to be look forward to!

Oh yes I nearly forgot about that! In July I’m going to Amsterdam with my new Dutch husband for a month to see the family and then we’re going to Sicily for 10 days. I’m actually reading up about Sicily at the moment. That’s on my bedside table.

Hmmm, what am I watching? You know what, I’ve actually been watching that show the Seven Year Switch. I actually find it really intriguing. It’s about peoples’ relationships and I know that it’s grossly edited …

I think we’re all fascinated by other peoples’ relationships …

How are other people think and relate. And they have the psychologist on board and they have the discussion and I know it’s all edited for television but there’s still a truth in there. There’s still a truth that can’t be hidden no matter the editing. And I find it quite fascinating, relationships and human nature. So I have been watching that.

Do you have a motto for life?

I do. I read this in very old little book that somehow landed in my lap many years ago, I think it was called the circling hours, and there was this aphorism that was: “Keep hope and elasticity then like the tender anemone you will be dashed by the waves but not broken.” And I love that, hope and elasticity. And then my father he had a great motto which I’ve now adopted. His was: “The impossible we’ll do now, miracles will take a bit longer.” And I’ve got one more! Can I have another one? This one is: “Saturdays are for adventures, Sundays are for cuddling.” I think we should all belong to the Church of Cuddling. Coz in the olden days people would actually relax on Sundays, then go to church, come back, have lunch – maybe the mother wasn’t so relaxed! But anyway they would just have time out. We don’t do that. So let’s not bring back church, let’s bring back cuddling! We can have the Church of Cuddling. We can just cuddle all day Sunday! 

[The interview didn’t stop there. For a special treat have a listen to the Soundcloud version. You’ll be rewarded toward the at the end of the audio.]

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Full interview on SoundCloud below or HERE