Wednesday 14^th March

Still warm and balmy in Melbourne, with just a hint of lightning on the horizon.  We have increased the population of 2XS, by more than double:

Michael Agnew

James Headlam

Jason Bayley-Stark (aka Jabba)

are now with us.  Jabba is a late starter – he will come on board on Friday, freshly back from N. and S. America and the fleshpots of Copacabana and Ipanema.  James and Michael arrived from Tasmania this evening.  Pete and I went to the supermarket while we waited to pick them up from the bus-stop and we managed to leave behind one bag of groceries…and no not the one with Doritos in it, the one with Scotch fillet steak and a four-pack of freshly ground coffee in it.  Oh woe… Other than that all is well and we are very happy to see our new 2XS-ers.  We have just had a delicious dinner (late!) at a beautiful restaurant on the river – Bistro Vite and now the men are all going through safety procedures on deck – much raucous laughter in amongst serious discussions of how long they would last overboard at night.  (Not long…)

Today Pete had lunch with an ex-Tasmanian lawyer friend, and I had lunch with ex-Tasmanian nieces – beautiful Jo and beautiful Isabelle.  Pete had gourmet fare at a gorgeous restaurant near the Supreme Court; we had small savoury treats in a little café, Journal, in the Melbourne Library.

And in the morning – oh dear – Pete and I had a failed and slightly (ahem) stressful attempt to get to Ikea, to buy a bathroom cabinet for Katy in Hobart… I will take all of the blame for the failure… I had looked up the address – 630 Victoria Street –and programmed it into the NavMan, which faithfully took us there.  Pete was sure the NavMan was WRONG WRONG WRONG and indeed it was… There was only a small terrace house at 630 Victoria Street; we had gone in entirely the wrong direction, against Pete’s natural instincts.  I had omitted to program in RICHMOND, which is where this Ikea megastore is to be found.  By the time we got there I had 15 minutes to get to the city center to meet Jo and Isabelle… Pete drove off to meet Fabian; I didn’t even try to “pop” into Ikea to find the cabinet.  Ikea is a bit of a hellmouth, a labyrinth of majestic proportions.  I would never have got through it in time to be in the city in 15 minutes.  As it turned out I was 30 minutes late even whizzing there straight away in a taxi from the jaws/doors of the hellmouth.  Puff pant stress!!  Maybe tomorrow I can go there in a tram… Pete, Mike and James, with Pete’s cousin Robert from Geelong, are going to the Grand Prix…

And…of course….James is thrilled to bits to find the 44 gallon drum tied onto the rear deck with the large and rusty ex-anchor chain in it, just for him.