Tuesday 13^th March

Happy birthday Nicky, happy birthday Monique – daughter and sister!

Our Melbourne 2XS days are rushing past.  Lots of fun, lots of friends.

Yesterday we rode down to Mornington to spend some time with Cam and Del who are on their way from the Gold Coast to Western Australia with their caravan.  We went to the local yacht club which was heaving with people - a hot, sunny public holiday Monday.  Perfect for trade, perfect for hoicking the prices way up.  We had delicious bruschettas which cost about as much as eye fillet steak on a normal day but never mind – the ambiance was great, the view sensational.

It is 60 miles from the caravan park Cam and Del were staying at to Melbourne.  We were due at St Kilda, for dinner with our ex-(briefly)Tasmanian friends Liz and Robbie at seven.  I said it was a good thing we had the bikes in the back of the ute – we could go for an invigorating bike ride along the foreshore at St Kilda, maybe.  But…no.  We drove bumper-to-bumper nearly all the way to St Kilda and got there in just under three hours.  Just in time for dinner with the ever-hospitable Burns family.

Today Pete built a big wooden slat construction for the bunk in the other big cabin.  Poor Steve had suffered greatly from cold damp wetness in his ten days on 2XS.  This will never happen again which is small consolation to poor shivering Steve!

I didn’t stay to hand nails through the doorway; I went to town with Del, who had persuaded Cam to drive up from Mornington - - it took them two, not three hours to travel the 60 kilometres.  (Melbourne traffic is hell!)  Del said she hadn’t been to the city center for 40 years so she really enjoyed our few hours strolling through the Big and Little streets, the arcades, David Jones.  Cam was certain that she would spend up a storm and his face was wreathed with smiles and delight when we turned up with no shopping bags at all.  He doesn’t approve of SHOPPING.  I had bought a pair of silk knickers, in a pleasing pale shade of pink, vastly reduced to $10.  Other than that we had bought a cup of coffee and then a bowl of soup – we were not good for the economy of the CBD.  We had a good time, gasping and stretching our eyes at the price of this and of that, admiring beautiful things, raising our eyebrows at strange and unusual fashions.

Tonight we went to dinner in Docklands with Pete’s friends Jo and Malcolm Cleland, who have lent him their farm ute.  It was Pete’s idea to bestow a big treat on them as a thank you for the ute – steamboat for four, in a new Chinese restaurant.  It was a very warm night so I wore one of my Vanuatu dresses, the one like a tropical cocktail.  Quite fetching when I am all warm and pink with heat but…not so good with goosebumps… It was icy cold in the restaurant - oh that cursed air-conditioning!  I managed not to whinge too much, and the steamy hot steamboat did warm me up.  But…poor Pete, he hadn’t realised that not only was this restaurant not licensed to provide alcohol, it was also not licensed for BYO… We each had a nice big refreshing glass of…water!!  Now Pete never drinks water, not unless it has Aspro Clear in it, so he had a completely dry dinner.  We did of course have fun, dropping bits of fish, bits of spinach, bits of goodness knows-what into the steaming broth and fishing it out later.  Some of our bits of lovely fresh green vegetable stayed in too long and turned a not-so-appetising shade of khaki.  These were discarded in our bowls, next to the poor rejected tofu which nobody seemed to like at all.  (And in case I hear a cry of outrage – I have tried to love tofu…but, please tell me, what is there to love??)

Tomorrow is another day…James Headlam is arriving, and his cousin, Michael Agnew.  They are coming with us to King island and maybe beyond.  And at lunchtime I am talking my very own nieces, Jo and Isabelle out for lunch in Flinders Lane.  Good times…