Yamba 2014 - Day 11

It was a lazy day.

Slept in until 9:30am ... who does that?

Made it to Latitude 29 for a late morning tea of chocolate dripping inside and outside her hot chocolate and my mocha. I exchanged pleasantries with our barrister while Sue went instead for lewd and lascivious.

Main Beach and a few minutes with family members before being talking into a hot chocolate and mocha at Pippis Cafe. More fun and games and stories. The family stories really are the best.

Back on our own again and before long we were down into the town again and trying the BeachWood Cafe for the first time. Given the reputation Sevtap Yuce (SBS TV and books) has established for lovely fresh flavours and a cuisine influenced by her background but grounded in her environment, I expected a lot of the place. Certainly her personal welcoming was a strong feature of our dining experience but call me old fashioned or certainly lacking in trend but sitting on wooden boxes isn't my thing. Neither are rickety tables perched together on a crowded waking space. Some might call it atmosphere but I'd call it too small a space and placing your customers in the streetscape as a cheap alternative to providing a dining space. Granted, the food was good. My lamb koftes and their accompanying sauce were still being enjoyed as I licked them from the corners of my mouth and my companions chilli garlic prawns (local, of course) were smothered in a delightfully light dressing. Service was good, although a little hovering and in need of approval for my liking.

To cap the experience, there was not only no eftpos or card facilities but also no attempt to inform diners of the fact before ordering. The plethora of younger diners from Sydney who raved about us did their best to intimidate me into believing my hard bum and space consciousness was uncalled for. Good try but no such luck. Not for me.

Somewhat disgruntled, we paid a visit to the Story House Museum, which has been extended since our last wander through and on this occasion featured a small but fine display of aboriginal art. Its a well organised museum, with lots of photos, all well labelled and plenty of information about local history.

After gathering a few things to contribute to dinner, we went for the obligatory sunset drinks at the Pacific Hotel and met a couple from Brisbane who were just completing their first tourist day in Yamba. We only had an hour to chat but we made the most of it.

The evening was spent with Sue's sister Mandy and her husband Joel and their eight year old twins Ava and Jack. I had been enjoying conversation with the ladies but a descent into ladies handbags and Diana Ferrari shoes drove me from the table and into the arms of Joel, Jack and the football. We left at half time, but not before Joel managed a backflip into the glass-topped coffee table as Manly scored. Cuts, abrasions and a shattered coffee table top.

My mantle as the king of calamity has finally been shattered ... so to speak.

Yamba 2014 - Day 10

We both sleep well and long. It seemed warmer during the night and we have settled into the rhythm of this new life and new accommodation. Our late breakfast was taken in the sunshine.

Mid morning we drove into Yamba - Sue was unable to ride the bike with the onset of a mad swimmers head cold. Parking at Pippis Cafe, we walked out to and circumnavigated Lover's Point in delightful winter sunshine and the usual blustery breeze which seems to blow only there. There was lots to see in the colourful rock pools and yet another few examples of the teepees built from ocean debris which appear all the rage this year. One was so elaborate that it had a stone table and chairs. On Convent beach, a small crayfish lay abandoned by a retreating tide, fascinating the children who had gone their to splash and be excited by the cold water of the Pacific and the warm hearts of doting parents. The rock platform below Ritz St held more colours and critters a the tide gradually filled the cracks and crevices.

Up the ramp from Main Beach, we enjoyed at coffee at Pippis Cafe and then return to our digs and a BBQ lunch with Mandy's family.

Late into the afternoon, we returned to town for more of the chocolate decadence of Lattitude 29, before Sue went shopping and I went up the hill to the Pacific Hotel and some editing. It was the final instalment and the completion of an entry form as I submitted a play to the Playwriting Australia hoping for a place in a program to workshop it and brush it into stage quality.

Sue joined me for sunset drinks and afterward, we met the near full moon on the beach as the high tide rolled in. I had some fun with the low exposure, low light tricks photography courses had taught me, shooting the two of us in three poses in the one 30' photo. Afterwards, we dined at Sassafras on gluten free pizza.

I went home to write an application for arts funding of the Postcode Poets. Sue went home to snore.

Yamba - Day 6

Gumby and Co

Sue woke improved after the application of antibiotics and lots of sleep, so after breakfast and some balcony sunshine, was able to walk the short distance to Pippi's - our close and handy cafe/restaurant - where we met up with Rose. We discussed our businesses, past lives, present successes and future directions.

Rose returned with us to the flat when Sue's health licence expired and Mandy and daughter Ava joined us soon after for a late morning modelling class but nothing Miranda Kerr would ever have taken part in. This was plasticine "in the round", with all but me taking part in the shaping of best examples of the art and the display of same on the central table. Pride soon turned to panic as the colourful creations of furtive imaginations soon imitated the Wicked Witch of the West and could be heard screaming "I'm melting, I'm melting" as the hot winter sun slacked their spines and puddled the aspirations of creator and creation.

Rose was good enough to be Susie Sitter Sister whilst I walked into town to post the box of shells Ava and I had collected for my daughter Sarah. A Yamba shell held in the pocket can fix many a problem and ward of even the most persistent demons, so we sent her a box of them because placed in a bag, they could play merry hell with a demon's face.

Encouraged by the the Wobbly One, I had lunch in town - a bacon and egg roll and a bowl of fruit salad and yogurt washed down with tea - and then walked home. They were both asleep in the same position I left them, although they assured me they had absented themselves from the bed to devour lunch. I'm not sure I'm that gullible.

Sue and I are great walkers, especially on holidays and by now, had this been a "normal" Yamba, we would already have thirty kms up for the week but as Sue's head had wanted to walk in circles, then smaller circles  and then not at all, we have been missing our long walks, geography lessons and hands held to bind us to this life we have made ...

... so, in an effort to make amends, we went for a drive instead. On Pacific Parade, which runs behind Pippi Beach, I got some spectacular snaps of three guys riding para-boards ... surfboards with wind sail kites attached. The waves were choppy and the wind gusty so their manoeuvres were pretty exciting. As I was taking photos, the wind blew my cap off. After finishing, it looked like I had lost my cap because I couldn't see it anywhere until an nice old lady pointed out it was at my feet. Doh!

Next stop was Main Beach, scene of many of Sue's greatest Yamba achievements, many of them involving boys not buoys.

Lone surfer

At Turners Beach, I got some good snaps. One in particular, of an older surfer sitting with his board on the sand watching the waves and readying himself to go out, was a goodie. Seagulls and rocks and trees also become subjects. From there, we went to the Yamba Wharf which reminded me to make a booking for the Jazz Cruise on Sunday. We went last year and had a ball listening and dancing to a five piece, and enjoying a cheese platter and a few bottles of red. A very pleasant way to spend four hours on the Clarence.

Further west, we drove down Carrs Rd to Oyster Channel. Our children will remember this as the place where I bogged the Nissan Patrol and their mother instructed them in the merits of discretion being ultimately the far superior part valour. I dropped it to the back axil in mud and water, ruined a pair of joggers suck-stepping around the car to inspect what the fool driving had caused and then coloured the day with language unbecoming. These were back in my days of being a turd. We eventually got out thanks to luck, although at the time I talked up my skill to an appreciative but hardly gullible audience. Home was home no matter what pretence it took to get you there. There were no such dramas today - the track is blocked by large boulders, not just the "do not enter" signs which were there previously. It looked a quiet place to sit and read ... as long as no Nissan Patrols turned up.

It was late in the afternoon, so we drove back into Yamba and had coffee as the staff packed up around us at Caperberry's, before I returned Sue back to the flat, no worse for wear. I went out to the Plaza to hunt and gather, with Dylan and then John Mayer blasting in the white ear pieces whist people smiled at me dancing up aisle three amongst the pasta sauces. Don't talk to me about surrealism Salvador.

Buritos for dinner and then out to Lance's place for the evening and a chance to catch up with nephew John - Lance and ex-wife Jenny's son. He's taller and still has an easy smile and is always pleasant to spend time with. It was a nice night. Sue felt well enough to give her brother heaps but then, she'd need to be in a box not to do that. She lasted to ten o'clock and then, apparently concerned I would turn back into a house mouse and the Forester into a pumpkin, she yawned instructions to be taken home.

I squeaked agreement and took her arm for the dangerous passage down stairs, upstairs and into bed.

Tired now, I'll clean my whiskers and dream of cheese.