I’ve just had a
little midday nap. Well, one does on an extra warm, seaside, autumn day. But I
… do you know, I’ve had more exercise, in the outside air and the sun, in the
last forty-eight hours than I usually get in a month…! And without a walking
stick! It must be the air here, and of course the excitement of a new home.
Night number one,
I couldn’t resist walking up the hill to my favourite Yamba restaurant, Fusion
on the Hill, to see Sunny and Rams, whose place it is, and have just one teensy
Gold Fashioned (simplified Aussie version) and a couple of plates of Rams’s
perfect parmesan scallops and the best, softest infintesimally battered
calamari (sorry, Sydney) ever … Then I tumbled DOWN the hill again (it’s all
hills between home and .. anywhere!) to home and yayyy! a brilliantly comfy big
bed …
I woke with the kookaburra
and bounded from bed, penned yesterday’s little blog of delight, had my
chamomile and marmite soldiers on the dawning terrasse, unpacked my last bits
(where did I leave my hat!?) and then headed DOWN the hill (much steeper, this
one) to the town centre (one and two bits streets). First stop, the lovely and
powerful Amanda at Yamba Remedial Massage. By the time she was done, all my
Kiwi aches and pains and things-a gentleman never-mentions were back in teenage
(forgive the slight exaggeration!) order, and I rebooked, and headed next-door
to the celebrated Beachwood café for lunch. It became a ritual last year: I and
Professor Robert Lee met each Friday at Beachwood for lunch, drinks and gossip.
Alas, he doesn’t arrive here for two weeks, so I lunched alone. Alone? No way.
The wondrous Sevtap Yuce (buy her dazzling Turkish cookbooks) was there, to
serve me up her peppered chicken-livers with sesame oil and Italian pasta …
By this time I was
feeling on top of the clouds, so I went shopping. Normally, I hate shopping,
but today it was such fun. The flat is set up – extremely well – as what it
was, a swish holiday let. But for someone to actually live in, for months and
months, a few things were missing. First stop, Kitchen and Table. Yesterday, ‘niece’
Renee and I had popped in there for a five-star sandwich, I was taken by the
place, the people and the delicious kitchenware on show … so … My flat had no
bowls. I mean proper bowls for Indian food and cashews. It had no teapot (it’s
too hot here for coffee, and I yearn to graduate from bags). And … well, I like
to eat off a wooden trencher rather than a china plate ..
Scott at Kitchen
and Table answered my every need. Bowls and teapot …
Popped in to the
Yamba Fisho for a dozen of the hugest prawns I have ever seen ($26) and then … end
of shopping! Because home is UP the hill. And sure enough, when I got back to
base I had ‘clopidogrel shoulder’ from the weight of the bag .. big bloody
bruises where the bag had pinched.
Bruce and Helen,
who manage this place and its 26 holiday lets (plus me) are going to be my
parents while I’m here (I could be theirs!). Bruce came round and we had a
grand chat about how the place works, and what I can have or not ($$) in the
way of extras ... I opted for the linen service once a fortnight at $20, yayy
no sheet-washing! I don’t use the phone,
but I can reach them in emergency with one touch. And, well, we’ll do something
about the TV. I watch different station(s) to your average holidaymaker! Get
rid of the films and frightful news programmes, get rid of the game-shows and
all fiction: bring on the racing and all sport except the various Aussie
variations of kick-the-ball-and-crunch-him.
A nice bottle of
chardonnay, half of those huge prawns (when they are so huge they become a bit
tough for plastic teeth), a little lovely-music session with youtube … my
computer says I went to bed at 8.26pm. So I guess I did.
And I slepppppppt.
Doors wide open (forgot about the mosqitoi, but they left me alone). There were
folks with a wee baby in the adjacent flat … didn’t hear a thing! But at 6am
there was that birdie, squawking outside my window (no sycamore tree!) ‘get up,
get up’. At six I usually groan and turn over, but you can’t here, somehow … I
got up and abluted lengthily, and went to the kitchen for my chamomile and
marmite (this could become a habit) and then thought .. now! Time for a walk to
the beach before it gets hot.
Well, I now know
that the beach ’20 paces away’ has three approaches. The first, not far from my
flat, is for the young. I went without my stick, which is sometimes more
hindrance than help. Yikes! Climbing over rocky mountains! Slippery rocks … I
felt like Chelsea Friedlander in The
Pirates of Penzance… But I made it
without a fall ... and on to the sand … when did I last loiter on a sandy
beach? And, while I loitered, a beautiful, big blue and gold halcyon came to
see me, and fluttered round my head! But he didn’t want to be photographed.
There was another
steep exit, but I opted for the far end of the beach and a concrete path. Wait
a moment! I have been here before! This is where Paul and I met the sleepy
serpent last year… Anyway, it’s the
elderly-gentlemanly best way to the beach, and within sight of home!
But the butcher
was waiting for me with a very superior bit of silverside ($9!), the Family
Store was open, and they had a delightful Indian shopman who shepherded me to
all the ingredients of a chole palak (I’m supposed to try to make one for the
first time tonight), and … well, I didn’t have a proper pot in which to cook
tomorrow’s silverside so I just HAD to go back to Kitchen and Table …
Result. Two
shoulder bags. Two bloodied shoulders …
And now I’ve sworn
to try to cook. Helllllp! It’s 3.10pm.
Not yet. Can I do this? And why are my
calves aching …? Pass the Banrock Station …
I don’t HAVE to
cook. But I said I would …
More Banrock …
And on to the
future!
Is it silly to
feel so stupidly excited at a new adventure at seventy years of age?
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