I'm not sure that this achieved quite what I wanted in this shot, but I may have been on the right track. On the other hand, I was actually there so I remember only too well what it was like.

Given water restrictions (our dams are at only about 60% capacity even with recent heavy rains), we can't just turn the hose on our cars even if we had the space to do that. Which I don't. I use the D.I.Y. car wash most weeks (which uses recycled water) but periodically I take my chariot along to get a hand wash and polish. The day seemed fairly temperate at first, but was doing a pretty fair impersonation of a pizza oven by the time I went to the car wash in the afternoon. As I sat there waiting for the washing to be done I had sweat pouring off me, with the temperature in the mid to high 30's.

Outside, the sun bakes the roof of the building opposite (which is Canterbury Hospital), and the spray of the ornamental fountain provides a counterpoint to the curtain of heat.

And yes, the windows do need a wash.
---
Edit August 2023: You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. My stamping grounds in those days were... not always what you'd call "down market" (though other parts of Canterbury Road certainly were), but they were a bit industrial, a bit blue collar. This car wash was an example. Next door there was Harrison's Timber and Hardware. I'm not sure whether these places were in Campsie or Belmore; they sat near the border. There wasn't much of a clear demarcation of localities along Canterbury Road.

On other parts of the road you could find shoe factories, clothing factories, specialist hi fi retailers, fast food outlets, service stations, army disposals stores, small car yards... you know those "low rent" areas in Cities Skylines?

Yes, a bit like that.

Part of me felt like I should be somewhere "better". though in what way wasn't completely clear to me. But another part looks back on that area and those days fondly and nostalgically, especially as by this time my career was well and truly back on track so I was able to live a better life. (Except in the dating sphere which was pretty much like an ongoing train wreck in early 2010.) I had no notion that these days were rapidly drawing to a close. Part of that was me leaving to move down the coast within a couple of years (a VERY unforeseen turn of events in early 2010), but the other part was the entire area being bought up by property developers to build apartment block after apartment block.

The car wash lasted until at least the end of 2015 but by 2016 it was obliterated, with apartment blocks appearing the following year. Ditto with the hardware store. Ditto with the car yard opposite. Ditto with the office furniture store a few km down the road that is referenced in one of my other PADs, somewhere.

There's an intangible "vibe" to those lost, baking hot summer days on a decaying industrial road in Sydney's inner west, one that has been replaced by relatively soulless apartments which are built at the lowest price possible, and where people just live in the resulting boxes looking out to see... more boxes. It's a vibe that those who were there may remember from time to time. Especially if they took a photo of it for a PAD gallery. But it's a vibe that will never, and can never, return... for better or worse.