And just to overload the metaphor even further, 2010 drives off into the distance. Well, one of the few other cars in the car park does, anyway.

As regular visitors to my galleries will know I'm quite partial to stark, barren and somewhat lonely urban environment scenes resulting from the Jeffrey Smart and Edward Hopper influence, though for shots like this I really do need to get my HDR skills up.

In this particular case I was at this shopping centre (in this elevated car park) around sunset a few days ago and thought "Yup, uh-huh, that's my 'sunset on the year' shot". Though admittedly I was lucky that the car park was largely deserted this time, which it definitely wasn't last visit. The difference is that most of the shops had closed by this time tonight, with Woolworths being the only one that was still open until 9.

The sun is also setting on Centro itself. To cut a long story short it over-borrowed, over-invested in US retail assets (now there's a good idea!) just before the GFC hit, then wasn't able to refinance its debt because of the GFC choking off credit markets. That happened in 2007 and the group has struggled on, but as of two days ago some $13.5 billion of assets went onto the selling block. Whatever name is on this centre this time next year, Centro probably won't be it. Senior management were naturally in no way to blame for this, and doubtless "earned" their bonuses for that year as well.

Ooooh-kay, that's it for this gallery. Tomorrow, time to upload the first image of the new year into the 2011 PAD and remember to change the settings on the gallery so that that one becomes my new PAD gallery. I wish a safe, healthy, prosperous, and possibly even fun and enjoyable new year to all of my regular viewers... and indeed to any casual viewers who just happen to see this image.

I have an early start in the morning, so it's off to bed for me. See you all next year...