M and I, when we have had a spare second, quietly marvel at the good fortune that has let us appear in Melbourne and be absorbed into an already existing household.
“Just imagine,” marvelled M, “if we had moved into our own place. We would have had to buy a heater, a fridge, a bed…”
“And it would have been tiny and expensive.”
“Mmmm,” he agreed. “And yet we’re here, with all those things provided, and in walking distance of our new favourite cafe, the beach, a yacht club and a chandlery.”
“And we get our own bathroom - almost an impossibility in a share house…”
We shook our heads in wonderment, like two bemused sheep.
We’d walked across the road and down to the chandlery, where I mooned over bits of red rope that would make Oomoo look even cuter, and we bought a rather expensive stainless steel handle for the new storage compartment. PBS was playing in the background - a station I used to be very involved in - and I realised I was back in the land of interesting radio, no longer confined to Radio National and JJJ. Then we wandered to the nearby cafe - think windsurfer hire and Diver Dan - we ordered a juice and a coffee. I couldn’t leave. I made M get another cappuccino so I could continue sitting in the sun, reading the paper and mocking the upmarket Hampton mother who was buying her three year old a sausage roll, but wanted to know all the flavours of all the muffins; ‘are they low fat?’ and ‘I want a cappuccino in a mug’ and ‘is it low fat?’ I was tempted to give her a lovely low fat thump to the head, but the weather was too nice. As M was ordering his enforced second coffee, the sausage roll child began to scream, so M asked;
“Can I have two biscuits, a cappuccino and a sack with some bricks so I can drop that kid off the pier?”
The guy serving didn’t even pause.
“You won’t need the bricks,” he said, “She’ll sink like a stone.”

We both decided that our luck is almost too good to be safely discussed. Our weekend was hermit-like; due to the fact that I accidentally gave out the wrong phone number to everyone we know; because we have so much unpacking to do; and because our heads are slightly fried by the events of the past three weeks. Of course, moving into a fully furnished house does have a few minor downsides - we have two blenders, a surfeit of chairs, cutlery and glasses; there is nowhere to put our lovely dining table, and the cats are freaking out at each other. All these things have been worked around - except the cats, who met for the first time last night. We staged an ‘introduction’ (though it was more like an ‘intervention’) in the lounge room last night. It was not completely unsuccessful, but it was close. We will try again tonight.