HUNGRY HEART
OF ALL THINGS, THE BINS ON HIS STREET IN EASTERN SYDNEY HAVE BECOME SIGNIFICANT IN THE LIFE OF TIM ROBARDS. WHY? BECAUSE THEY’RE A MARKER OF TIME, AND TIME HAS BECOME PRECIOUS TO HIM. “YOU KNOW, I WALK PAST THEM, AND I SEE THE BINS HAVE GONE OUT, AND I THINK, THAT’S ANOTHER WEEK,” SAYS ROBARDS. IN THE ENSUING FORTNIGHT IT’S, “THERE ARE THE BINS OUT AGAIN … AND THERE THEY ARE AGAIN. THEY’RE A CONSTANT REMINDER OF ANOTHER WEEK DOWN. AND IT SCARES ME.”
An approaching milestone birthday – Robards turns 40 on the 1st of October – has intensified this dread of time slipping away while there’s still so much to do. The clock’s ticking – and every tick is a miniature explosion in his head.
It hasn’t helped that, of late, his famously cover-worthy body has been breaking down more than it used to, buckling under the weight of stressors it might once have absorbed. He rattles off his most recent injuries: a hamstring, ripped off the bone; a biceps, same thing; and the last one, a rectus femoris (quadriceps muscle), torn at the start of a touch-footy game. “I didn’t get the chance to do a proper warm-up,” Robards recalls. “I managed a couple of leg swings, a couple of high knees, and at my age that’s not good enough. Suddenly, the ball was coming my way … there was a gap … a full-field 100 per cent sprint … and pop.” He ended up having the tear surgically fixed because he wasn’t prepared to stop sprinting as a concession to ageing. And he’s proud of his rehab: the doc said he’d be in a knee brace and on crutches for six weeks post-op; Robards tossed them after one. “I wouldn’t advise that for everyone, but because of my chiropractic background, I knew how to protect it.”
Robards chats with on the balcony out
