Back to Melbourne

Will drops us off at the airport before heading off for his child-free 11 hour ferry crossing. I’m quite happy too as I only have a one hour flight before getting them into bed. All goes as planned and he arrives to collect us the next morning just as we are tucking into breakfast.

We spend the morning at St Kilda’s and then head down to the beachfront, indoor swimming pool. Melbourne is known for it’s changeable weather conditions and this is typical. So hot in the morning that we head for the beach, by lunchtime it starts to get chilly and by late afternoon we’re all digging out jeans and fleeces.

Will’s best friends from Uni days are both in Melbourne and we start by staying with
Dave and Sharon plus their 3 kids, Matt, Lucy and Ali. We haven’t seen them since the last time we were in Melbourne, 5 years ago, but it’s as if we saw them last week. Will’s soon out the door with Dave, off on a darts night and, when they finally return, drunken and loud, we all hop into the outdoor hot-tub. An hour later, we have company. At first we thought someone had ordered stripograms but no, turns out these two were a real-life policeman and woman, called by a neighbour who was complaining about the noise. I think they were a little surprised to see that there were only 4 of us in there, working our way through the 10 litre bottle of port. Poor Sharon was mortally embarrassed, as they’ve lived in that house for 12 years without a visit from the police, yet our first night there…I think Dave was secretly quite cuffed!

Sharon’s mum has kindly offered to baby-sit the kids for us the next day so that we can all go off to a winery for lunch and then they have friends and family coming over for a bit of a party in the evening. We arrive back from lunch to find that Sharon’s sister had to dive, fully clothed, into the pool as her 2-year-old daughter had gone under the bubbles and sunk like a stone to the bottom, without any of the other kids noticing. Kids drowning in pools is a massive problem in Australia and it really makes you stop and think when something like this happens.

I’ve managed to wangle getting a flight back to Adelaide for a final weekend, taking Harley with me. Although we spent 3 weeks in Adelaide over Christmas and New Year, I really didn’t get to see a lot of Moni since she was either in hospital having baby Emily or back there with her when she caught a nasty virus and I don’t know when I’m going to get to see her again after this trip. So I’m off on a plane again (don’t mention carbon footprints. I know, I know) on another one hour flight, leaving Will and Ruby in the capable hands of Nick, Lisa, Henry and Charlotte.