Not having had daylight saving for the two years I wa sin Queensland, I’d forgotten the wonder that occurs when daylight savings finishes. You are suddenly able to wake up early and not feel like you’ve been run over (if you’ve been going to bed at a decent hour).

So M and I were up and walking to the beach with our surfboards just after 7am. Miraculous. The waves were crap, so we just went for a swim instead. I very quickly realised, that bathers are very unsuited to the surf. Boardshorts were urgently required. The small problem of Wollemi Pines in my bikini area also needed to be attended to. On our way back to camp we stopped at reception and asked if we could swap sites to a corner site, right on the water that we knew would be available for the next five nights. The guy on reception said ‘no problem’ so in about 30 minutes we had thrown everything in the van and moved to the wonder campsite.

It’s excellent. We are right on water, and when we get around to it (Thursday) we can put Oomoo on the trolley and wheel him 15 metres into the water. Perfect. I did a much needed clean out and reorganisation of the van, some hand washing and repacked my bags to be in weather friendly order. During my neatening I found the bathmat I’d spent the last month wondering about stuffed in with M’s tools, covered in grease. Bastard. I spent a peaceful half hour reading my book and refusing to succumb to his pleas of contrition. It’s completely obvious to me that he will never learn that there are some things he can wreck, begrime and tear up and there are others, like bath mats and beach towels, that he cannot. It’s quite odd. He’s not as bad as he used to be, but he’s still bad.

We went on an exploratory ramble through cafes and op-shops. I got two pairs of boardshorts for six dollars. I went and got an eyelash tint and bikini wax, and it seemed to me the waxing lady was wasting valuable time while I lay there, eyes shut, being tinted. I suggested she get on with the bikini waxing while I still had my eyes closed,which she thought was hysterical. So I had a bikini wax, sight unseen, which was actually not too bad at all. And I only got charged $28 for everything. I think it must have been a mistake.

Another swim. Bookshop. Pub. Fishing shop for fishing licenses. We went into the Terrace and asked politely about my mail. but it hadn’t arrived yet. Went back to camp for an hour and then took off to Mullumbimby to watch Small C do circus tumbling in a large shed. A huge storm was coming over the mountain, and the clouds were almost black. The downpour was HUGE and very reminiscent of last time we were here. J pointed an accusing finger at us and called us the ‘bringers of the flood’. She wasn’t wrong.

We met up with I for dinner at Milk & Honey - who make pizzas that are sublime in the extreme. Of course I had to have dessert - chocolate mousse with exquiste vanilla icecream, all covered in some kind of crunchy butterscotch crumbs. Ate WAY too much. Small C informed me that she and J had nits, They keep getting rid of them and then she goes back to school and they jump on her head again. She then investigated our van, and refused to believe that the girl wee-er was what we said it was.

We all lumbered off in opposite directions, with talk of going away over Easter (as we are to be kicked out of our campsite on the Thursday before Good Friday). Another dodgy sleep on the worlds hardest mattress. We swore in the middle of the night that we would find a good mattress the following day, somewhere.