FRIDAY 30 MAY     MERIMBULA

I had a long and sound night’s sleep.

We were woken by the phone at 8am. It was John’s son in law. He said that work was being done on the Durras holiday house, and there was no toilet functioning as a result. Therefore, they no longer intended to come down, this weekend.

This freed us from having to drive on up there today, we we’d planned to do, but left the question – now what? John decided we would stay on here and explore our options. He was already aware that there was a major bowls tournament happening here, over the next two weeks.

So, after breakfast, and after extending our booking here,  it was a drive down to the bowls club, where he left our details, just in case playing vacancies arose over the tournament time. This event was one where entries had been filled well in advance, but sometimes the unexpected did create gaps to be filled.

I was impressed by the scale of the bowls club. Could see why it had the capacity to host such a big event.

I bought some fish – fresh dory – for tonight’s tea, it being Friday. For us, fish dinners and Fridays are always linked – from our working days, when the luxury of a take away fish and chip tea was the best way to celebrate the start of the weekend. Old habits……

We went back to the van, bearing fresh bread rolls, to make lunch. I had plans to do the boardwalk walk, in the afternoon. This followed the shore of the lake at the town and looked to potentially be a pleasant stroll, more sheltered than a beach walk would be.

But John felt sleepy after lunch, so had a nap for a couple of hours. I went for a lone walk to the headland and then down on the beach. It was a bit breezy, but invigorating. Very good to be by the sea again – I had missed the beach strolls of last year, more than I realized.

When John did eventually wake up, I persuaded him to just do the short walk up to the Point, with me, so he could at least see some of the scenery.

It seemed, here, to get very chilly, quite early in the afternoon, but it had been quite nice through the middle part of the day.

John decided that we should move on tomorrow. He wanted to go on to Tathra, a bit further north. It had always been a favourite place of his, and we had stayed there before, on school holidays.

I would not get to do the boardwalk, after all.

A text message had come in from the bowls club and John phoned them. They needed a couple to fill in for a Mixed 4’s event on 11-13th June, so he said we would be in that. He said to me that, contrary to his earlier idea, he was not interested, after all, in waiting around here to see if a place became available in the prestigious pairs events, happening first. He wanted to focus on being at Durras for next weekend, a long weekend here, to see his daughter and grandsons. Fair enough – I am the last person to want to hang around anywhere for lawn bowls! Given that, over the past three and a half years, he had seen daughter and grandsons only once, and that for about an hour back a couple of days after last Xmas, I could fully understand his need to make that his priority. The family had, at that time, spent a few days in Melbourne, staying with John’s former wife, and catching up with friends. We had been slotted in for a brief visit, one morning.

I did not say anything, but thought to myself that I would not be surprised if the daughter found some reason to cancel out on being at Durras next weekend, too. Her life was a busy one and maintaining contact with us was not a priority, it seemed to me. But maybe it being a long weekend would draw them to the beach. For John’s sake, I hoped so.