Tuesday 20th June

Tuesday 20th June

A truly peaceful day. We all sat around in the morning and read papers and magazines and generally pottered about. Nice and relaxed.

As lunchtime approached we moved to Tony’s car and ambled off to inspect where they will be going to live. Obviously we had to look at the show house cos theirs isn’t finished yet. And it’s really lovely. Three bedrooms (though they will use one as a study), lovely, light open plan lounge, dining and kitchen – and the kitchen is very well appointed. Two bathrooms, one almost en suite from the main bedroom, the other en suite from the guest room. Mind you, I don’t think they have even yet fully grasped the concept of a “small house”. Not small. Not small at all. A medium sized house, perhaps. Although, having said that, I tend to refer to our house as a small one and it isn’t, either. It too is a medium sized house.

Anyway, enough verbal pedantry. Off we go to lunch, at the Flinders Pub in, er, Flinders. Nice food. Nice bottle of wine. I had barramundi (another type of fish, for those that don’t know) with a really nice Moroccan style chick pea and veg stew underneath it. The Builder had a local corned beef wodge, something that bears absolutely no resemblance to any kind of corned beef which might come out of a tin! And then we went for an explore around the Flinders area, including another drive through the golf course to admire the bay (We did this the last time we were here too – it’s a lovely drive). Then we detoured away to look at Martha Cove, a spectacularly expensive “estate” with marina they’re building between Mount Martha and Safety Beach. The marina will be lovely; I’m not so sure about the housing around it. Looks a bit cluttered to me. Will be interesting to see what it looks like when it’s finished. They’ve had to build an artificial harbour for the marina, with a canal leading up from the bay. And so as not to completely block the main coast road they’ve put a tunnel underneath the canal for the traffic. The design is intended to look like a whale (who knows why!) but some of the locals are complaining that the “whale bone” decoration along the top is unsightly and impeding their views of the sea. Don’t know what will be done about that – the contractors say they’ve done what they were asked to do and are not taking them down. Don’t think the council will. I believe it will cost over $1k per whale bone to remove them!!

Back to Mount Martha for a late afternoon gently pottering about. Tony comprehensively destroyed The Builder playing snooker. We had lasagne and the rest had ice cream for dinner. I watched what must surely be the last sunset I will see from this house (Tony and Stella are due to move in September and it seems unlikely we will be back before then!!! Lottery win, perhaps?) and the sun turned on a spectacular show for me. And once again, early to bed. All this going to bed early is all very well, and I’m sure it’s very good for me – but I do tend to wake up around half past three ready to bounce out of bed … well, ready for tea, at least!