THURSDAY 18 JUNE     TOWNSVILLE

The day was cloudy at times. It almost seemed like it might rain, but didn’t.

After breakfast, we walked to the Castletown shops, for assorted “stuff”.

John arranged to bowl at Thuringowa, and phoned A’s husband, S, to persuade him to go too. They arrived after our early lunch. A left S with John, for transport, and she drove us to the Jubilee Club, only a few blocks away. There, we sat round for over an hour, before the game started. Not being into daytime drinking, smoking or playing pokies, this sort of wasted time always annoyed me.

The rest of the afternoon was alright, with games of reasonable standard. Because it was social bowls, they decided the prize would go to whichever team had won by the smallest margin. That was my team, because we had won by 1. The prize was $7 – and it had cost me $8 to play! They were not generous with prizes, here!

John and S got back to the van soon after us, and we sat having a pleasant chat session for a while. They, and some others from our home club, always stayed at a caravan park on the eastern edge of town – it was a bit cheaper, they said.

As afternoon tea had been served to us both, at bowls, we only felt like a light tea. I made up my fall back Asian style soup – packet chicken noodle, enhanced with ham, spring onions, tinned creamed corn, sesame oil and strands of egg.

After tea, I read and John played his new computer game, which he deemed alright.

Then a curlew started its eerie calling, nearby. From the back window, I could see that it was on the grass right behind the van. John tried to sneak out to watch it more closely, but it ran off. It can be so hard to actually see curlews. They camouflage really well and are usually shy, so we felt quite privileged. But I hoped it did not start up again in the middle of the night. Whilst I loved their calls, now that I knew what was making the screaming, it was still not a pleasant way to be jolted out of sleep.