SATURDAY 6 JUNE     EMERALD

It certainly was a noisy caravan park, in the morning, with travellers packing up early, and residents doing their thing – a lot going off to work. A diesel mini-bus that was parked last night, just across from us, left about 5am, while it was still dark. It was definitely not a quiet bus. I thought it was ferrying workers somewhere. I was wide awake by 7am – and not particularly happy about it.

I did two loads of washing. The dark items emerged from the machine liberally streaked with lint, of course. I couldn’t be bothered hand rinsing a lot of things, just hoped I could brush off the worst when they were dry.

We walked to the nearest shops – one of two plaza style centres in Emerald. John’s hip took a while to get going. He thought he’d have to turn back, but battled on, and it loosened up.

At the shops, John made a bee line for Target, to buy some new socks, and – in the interest of looking a smidge more respectable – a couple of pairs of his favoured Rugger shorts. Then, at a men’s shop, he bought a $40 set of braces, to hold up the shorts. That was in order to just look decent. I wished I could donate him some of my well padded backside to help hold up his trousers!

I bought milk and collected the papers and John bought a woodwork magazine.

After an early lunch John went off to the Bowls Club, to do some practice with a lady he’d encountered there yesterday. She was a learner and had asked him for some coaching. He was not away  for very long. She was well alcoholled up, so trying to give her pointers to try to improve her game was a futile exercise and he did not persist.

The day was warm – well into the 20’s. This was more like we were expecting from Qld. In the afternoon, a big cloud build up grew, coming in from the south west, which seemed an unusual direction to me. Eventually it started to look like there might be rain, so I got in all the washing, which was nice and dry. Apart from that, I read the papers, and sewed.

Tea was Mongolian lamb, courtesy of a Kan Tong sauce packet. The easy way, but that sort of product  saved trying to carry a lot of weighty bottles of ingredients in order to create anything remotely exotic.

John watched football on TV, as did I by default. Carlton beat Brisbane, so John was happier than some in the caravan park.

The cloud kept the night quite warm, so I packed away the fan heater yet again and hoped this was the last time it would be needed on this trip.

I stayed up till 11.30. There was very loud and pounding music coming from somewhere nearby in the park, but it quietened down by midnight. John played computer games after the football was finished. Another late to bed for him.