As the sun was shining it's last this afternoon I happened to set my foot ashore for the first time today. For the purposes of this exercise, being on the pontoon doesn't count as ashore, as I'd spent an goodly part of the day inverted, sanding paint off the lower rubbing strips and sanding scratches out of the metal bumpers and when I got tired of that (after about a minute actually), I spent pretty much all day trial fitting three tarpaulin covers over the boat. Exactly how one can spend all day tying and untying three tarpaulins is beyond me, but I did.
That and making clips for all the ties, and fitting extra grommets in the tarps and commiserating with our German neighbours who were doing the same thing.
Meanwhile inside, things were deathly quiet. The sort of quiet that in a former life would have meant that the kids are about to get into serious trouble. The silent cleaner was at work, washing, organising and just doing stuff that needed doing.
But I digress. As the sun was shining it's last this afternoon, and I set my foot ashore for the first time today, I happened to wander past the Marina Office and as I glanced in, I couldn't help but notice that the seagull in the gift shop, captured in the day's last sunbeam, was flying south. Just why there are Seagulls in the gift shop which seems to be about as far from the sea as Alice Springs is, remains a mystery, but not as big a mystery as how it is that each year when it's time, that birds just seem to be able to go.
I'm fairly sure they don't put tarps over things, they just sort of fly off really and trust that it will all be there when they get back.
Before they fly, I'll bet they don't have lists of jobs that get shorter proportional to the time left to departure, or even bigger lists of things to do on their return that get longer in the inverse proportion.
But then they don't have the endless rounds of farewell dinners and afternoon coffee either, which I rather suspect they'd quite enjoy.
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