time to relax

Monday

OK, things do get better - far better - so you may like to skip the bit about Monday. Still there? Right. Monday started wet after a wet night and I decided to get an early start on being pissed off that I was stuck miles away from all my toys in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. The rain eased, in fact it may even have stopped for a while and I decided to take the dogs for a walk. We left the gate at the end of the garden and the boys bounded into the water, which proved to be very shallow but no less fun for that. I headed east, walking to the right. I passed a few empty houses, the boat ramp and a few more houses, a shabby little park with a covered BBQ and then walked out over the exposed rocks for another hundred yards or so. And could get no further. There was an oyster farm thing out in the cove that failed to inspire me much as I'd managed to walk for about ten minutes before having to turn back towards home.

Back along the waterfront and I continued to the west, passing some mangroves as I tried and failed to find a track or trail or path. Great. I let the dogs have a bit more of a swim - well, wade - played some fetch games and then headed back to to the house where I would find it far easier to be miserable than in the great outdoors, with the added bonus of being able to bring Sal down with the awe inspiring power of my gloom.

The rest of the day kind of fizzled away. Sal went to do a little grocery shopping while I remained at the house, hiding, to see if the dogs would attempt to escape. Sal drove away and I ducked back inside, hiding behind a sofa so the dogs would not see me. We'd put the tele on and I lay on the two mattresses we had placed on the floor as Alex's playzone. There was an interesting thing on Discovery Channel about the moon; it was once far closer and would have looked fifteen times as large as it does today. That was about as far as I got before falling asleep.

I woke up when Sal returned and when she had put the dogs back into the garden. Our genius plan to see if they would escape had been scuppered by an open gate and me being fast asleep. Ho-hum. They had only wandered to the front of the block, so no big deal.

At some point Sal went to have a kip leaving me and AJ in he playzone and that was very cool, though probably a bit dull for her as I was not exactly full of beans. She is incredibly easily pleased though. Hold on, that is almost upbeat; sorry, let me fix that up. Before leaving home I'd had the choice of my camera or Sal's. I asked Sal if the battery on hers was OK and she said she thought it was and neither of us checked but I can still blame Sal; I mean, I would, wouldn't I? So yes, the camera battery died instantly. I powered on long enough for the low battery light to come on and for me to ask if was likely to have a bit of life left and then to die. no worry, I could use my phone. Which decided to shit itself. The touch screen select button decided to just keep selecting, which is only any good if you want menu-message-create new-select recipient-save in drafts or something similar. Anyway, the camera debacle helped me stay irate but did provide some distraction as I changed SIM cards with Sal and restarted and generally pissed about and failed to get the thing to work. No camera. Fuckety fucking fuck it.

The rest of the day passed into evening and night in much the same way as every other would, with Alex struggling to get to sleep in her cot and then Sal and me having a bottle of vino while watching some tele. Despite having foxtel, a rare treat for us as we've not had pay TV for nearly seven years, here was absofuckinglutely fuck all worth watching and we ended up watching free to air with the exception of Grand Designs. But that hardly sounds because it is on free to air and the series that was running was an ancient one.

So it was relatively easy to maintain a decent level of misery throughout a wet Monday and look forward to more of the same on Tuesday, what with having no phone and hence no internet access and having missed the news so having no idea what the weather would be like on Tuesday.

Tuesday

There was some light drizzle that eased to dry and my phone started to work again. I would be able to walk Rowlf into Tea Gardens. Bugger, the day had started well. If I wasn't careful I may start to enjoy myself. Can't have that. Sal and AJ were sorted with breakfast and a reconstructed playzone, I worked out it would be maybe 16km to walk, grabbed hound, some dog food, a bottle of water and my GPS and hit the road. The plan was to call Sal from a little over half way, at a convenient intersection, give her my eta so we could meet for coffee and brunch.


The walk was a little interesting. The road from Bundabah (that sounds like a song title) heads up away from the water through some nativesque bush and then through rough pine plantation and some more open farmland. There as little wildlife to see; on the entire walk I saw one echidner, one possum and one wallaby or small roo - all dead. The greatest number of animals to see were a herd of cows that started to moo and wander lazily away from us as we walked past. I say "walk" but for Rowlf it was more of a startled, agitated, tail-between-the-legs, get-me-the-hell-out-of-here, what the FUCK are they? stilted attempt at bolting. Offered food treats failed to get his attention. It seems Rowlf is not a fan of cows, even if they are quite a way off, in a fenced field. Weird. At the intersection, and with an innacurate time and hence distance on the GPS (think I'd stopped tracking when I removed my backpack to take a drink) I did a quick pace calculation and gave Sal a call to say I'd be in Tea Gardens in around 70mins.

The greater part of the next section of the walk was not a whole lot of fun. I was still walking on the road - not a lot of pavement on the middle of nowhere - but now there was appreciably more traffic. Not enouhg to slow it down, so the walk was more about not getting mown down tha enjoying the great outdoors; a shame, as the roadside signage indicated we were walking though Koala territory and I would have enjoyed trying to spot them and adding to my lifetime total number of koalas spotted in the wild which has been sitting at one for a few years.

The odd puddle was enough to keep Rowlf hydrated and in the not too warm morning I felt fine as we arrived in Tea Gardens and met up with Sal and AJ. We found a cafe-stroke-gallery with a pole to secure Rowlf to on the front garden and settled in for some brunch. The weather still looked a bit iffy, but my mood was somewhat less iffy as I'd done something semi-energetic. Things were looking up; you can tell because I took my first picture of the holiday.

Time for an AJ interlude.