The most important item of the week is that Matt and his housemates have been ‘locked in’ for a week due to a staff member testing positive in their house. At first they had to stay in their rooms, but after all having negative RATs they were at least allowed to move around within the house. Staff had to wear full PPE, which Matt thought was a bit of a hoot, but couldn’t have been fun for the as it’s very restrictive.

Normally, if we want to visit Matt we just have to book in (so they don’t end up with too many parents at once) and sign in and show our vaccination status. RATs have not been added to the mix, partly because Matt and his mates go out quite a lot and are just as likely to catch COVID on their own, without help from parents. Matt comes home to visit by taxi and the only precautions is that the driver must wear a mask. I think he, the driver, is fully vaccinated as well. So Matt has just had to isolate in the same way we would have to if we were a close contact with someone who tested positive.

At the nursing home next to Eversley’s apartment block visitors have to have negative RATs before visiting, but I’m glad that they don’t treat Matt and his friends as frail, aged people. Perhaps being in such a small grouping helps as well, they can contain an infection fairly easily if it happens. Which is an argument for aged care to be provided in small groups living in homely houses, rather than in a large ‘care home’ that is inevitably institutional and works well for spreading flu and other diseases.

So, it’s Sunday, the day of release for Villa 3, and they just have to all have negative RATs. I just checked and they were all negative, but they have not yet had a final release. I’ve left a message that we will contact Matt via Facetime this evening after tea. Clearly it’s too early to work out if he can come to visit us tomorrow for tea.

We arrived here at Pinaroo Point for lunch yesterday. There is a coffee van here as well, though we noticed today that he didn’t arrive until about 12.00, so no good for my morning coffee. For some reason it was quiet yesterday afternoon, until the south westerly kicked in and the parasurfers came down to the beach. Eversley arrived at about 4.00ish in time to buy a coffee. We feel that we want to support his business and as it is much busier here today he should have a good trading day.

We have afternoon tea, then a swim/walk at the beach, then a light evening meal. It’s always interesting to have a shared meal if you haven’t planned what to bring – much better than trying to work things out beforehand and not being surprised.

Then it was time to get our folding chairs and head down to the beach for the sunset. We had clouds on one side of the sky and had some lovely golden light for photos. Eversley left and we settled in the van for the evening. It was cooler than last week and we slept well, especially as we didn’t have any noise overnight. Cars start coming into the car park at about 5.00 a.m., but by then we felt well rested.

This morning after our cups of tea we went down to the beach for a swim. Stephen went in his bathers, but I wanted to check first as last night there was a lot of seaweed near the beach which was annoying. However, this morning the seaweed was further out so I went back to the van to change. It was very pleasant and not cold, even when coming out of the water. We now have our awning out, plus the clothes airer for our bathers. The air has been very dry and the things that were dripping wet are long dry.

Our plan is to spend the rest of the day and overnight here, heading home in the late morning tomorrow, before it gets hot. At 12.20 here it is hot here, but we are expecting a south westerley breeze and there are hints every now and again of the cooler air to come. We have a good spot under a peppermint that provides dappled shade in the afternoon. If we didn’t have it we would have moved, either to a spot close to the grassy area or down to Whitfords Nodes which has lots of peppermints shading the car parking area.