Follow that Chinese spy balloon", I told Padma as we drove up the Kings Highway after a morning in the Bay. It took us the whole eight kilometres to Nelligen - not quite as long as it took President Biden - before we had figured out that it had nothing to do with Chinese spooks but all with a seagull who had left its greeting card on the windscreen.
Of course, we had been first in, first undressed at the pool this morning where we met up with some of the usual crowd, including Alicia with whom Padma struck up a conversation. My ears pricked up when I heard that she was born in Port Moresby; that her parents had been Dutch and had lived in Indonesia; that her deceased husband had been Chilean; and that she had read my favourite yachting book, "The Riddle of the Sands". You meet the most interesting people with your clothes off!
We left the pool before our hands turned into "Waschfrauenhände" (look it up, Des!), but continued with coffee and cake at Young Percy’s Café at the Catalina Country Club. It's a tough life but someone's gotta do it!
P.S. It's a real scorcher of a day, and I'm off to "Melbourne" to be out of earshot - and throwing distance - of Padma's crochet hooks to read the rest of "Blind Man's Bluff". If you can't read it here because you have run out of colouring-in crayons, you may wish to watch this documentary.
