Friday, April 15, 2016

Yambanese ... and growing!

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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!



 Home for a second breakfast, and then the shopping list. Difficult for me, who cannot handwrite. Bank, accountant, meat ordered from the butcher … and DOWN the hill. Saturday, what do you mean it’s Saturday? What difference does that make? People don’t WORK on Saturdays in Australia. Or in Yamba, anyway. Probably why there are too many empty shops with sad signs of fallen businesses over them. Including my favourite computer shop. Guys, I was coming to you with a $2000 order …

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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