Sunday
31st March
2XS has arrived somewhere near Jervis
Bay. They have set a cracking pace; I am
very impressed. Pete rang in the morning
to tell me about their progress, somewhere north of Bermagui. “It’s all good,” he said, “Except we went
through a very tempestu…” and then the phone cut out, leaving me to imagine all
manner of tempest and torment.
Fortunately he rang again later to say everything was OK, but that they
were now bashing their way into northerly winds and seas and that this was not
fun at all, so they were going to pull in for the night and not leave till
midday today.
I have a very nice story about…a hermit
crab! My friend Elsa’s grandson Henry is
a gentle nature-loving nine year old.
For his birthday last year, his thoughtful mother gave him a hermit
crab, in its own little terrarium, with all the ingredients a hermit crab needs
to make its eccentric little life just perfect.
I’m not sure how Hermit got outside but…he got lost, well and truly, in
the back garden a few months ago. He is
not very big, and this back yard in the Huon Valley is full of dangers. It is, just for starters, the domain of a
large, benign dog, several chooks and two peacocks all belonging to the family,
but there are also night-time visitors – wombats, possums, and devils. (Yes,
there is still a population of healthy devils in them thar hills, which is
great news for the devils but possibly not for one small and vulnerable hermit
crab.) The whole family banded together
to console Henry on his loss; he was very upset but accepted the loss of his
crabby friend. And then just a week or
so ago everyone was outside and Sally noticed a shell moving purposefully
around the garden – aha! Hermit! Alive and well, having survived for about
three months in dangerous terrain!
Yesterday Nicky and I went to MONA on
the new Mona Roma ferry. It was such a
great experience. The ferry is an
experience all in itself. It is painted
in grey camouflage, so it looks quite amazing, powering up the river. Inside it is more like a very trendy cocktail
lounge than a ferry. We sat outside near
a life-sized cow, randomly placed. We
were on padded stools but…we could, had we so chosen, have been sitting on
life-sized sheep. Of course. Why not??
We strolled around the museum for a few
hours. This time we queued for the Death
Chamber. It was nice, leaning on the
balustrade, looking down into the Void, watching people walking past engrossed
in their electronic guide devices. Nicky
said, “Umm…what if we are cheerily queuing for the Death Chamber and when we
get in there, we really are going to be killed?
We have been warned by the guide; we have agreed…” I won’t say what is actually in the Death
Chamber – not our own sudden death, obviously… It is more along the lines of
the Zen garden, which is the next thing Henry wants as a birthday present,
following the success of his hermit crab experience…
At midday we went out into the real
world outside and found, to our delight, a small market – the last MONA Market
of the season, apparently. We didn’t know
one single person except for…my brother Pete, with Andrea. They were sitting on a pink bean bag, eating their
lunch and saying, “Isn’t it funny, coming somewhere like this and not knowing one
single person…oh except for maybe a sister and a niece…”
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