Monday April 6, 2018

Our night at the beach was interesting. We had a couple of drunk/drug affected young women having a verbal fight outside. At one point, one of them banged with her hand on the van, demanding that we call the police. I asked what was wrong, and they took the fight further away. At one stage, I saw the woman from the other motorhome approach one girl as she was preparing to go down to the beach. She was trying to encourage her to not sleep on the beach. We noticed in the morning that they had an air mattress and lots of rugs, so not really roughing it, though the evening was quite cool.

One of the girls settled down in her car to sleep again in the morning, just as well as she still did not appear to be in a condition to drive. When I spoke with the neighbour she said there were three of them, one male, intending to sleep on the beach. We didn’t know that people did that sort of thing.

Another van came in before we went to bed, then another later, so that meant there were four vans spending the night in that car park. It was fairly hopping at 7.00 a.m., with surfers, fisherfolk, walkers – some with dogs and some with prams.

I noticed that some were carrying coffees, and went to get one for myself.

We took our time having breakfast and packing up. By the time we were ready to leave at about 10.00 a.m. we were fortunate to have two small cars either side. Getting out was tricky, but it would have been impossible in the small carpark with larger cars beside us. There is a turn around loop, which also makes it easier for cars and vans to exit.

Arriving home always feels an anticlimax. The house felt strange, with an unfamiliar smell. A giant crane was looming in the sky in the building site behind the house. We could see it from quite a distance as we were coming in to land.

We spent yesterday unloading most of our stuff. Although we are going to Fairbridge on Friday this week we won’t need most of the food, etc. I want to start fresh, with clean floor rugs, etc.

Today we did shopping and I sent six tins of formula to Della in China. I had purchased four already, in two lots of two, and only needed two more. We also had some more unloading to do.

This evening Matt came to tea. He didn’t seem to care for the main course, but I had bought a sort of mousse trifle from Coles, and he ate most of the tub, with Stephen and I having small tasters. Here he is, full of mousse – especially since he had a couple of small tubs of mousse as well – just to fill in the cracks.

I put a clean clothes protector on after he finished eating. I’m quite proud of the two I have made, although it is very easy using hand towells and left over cloth from tilda workshops cut on the bias for the neck and ties.