Thursday 24th July

It rained like a pissing cow during the night. The two padlocks held us securely. There was much groaning as we forced ourselves to emerge from beneath our doonas and fire up the Billy for the morning cuppa. Once recovered, the Lords of the Admiralty fell about planning the business of the day. A swim was out of the question so we settled upon recovering our stock market losses at Panthers Leagues Club. The rain radar indicated a possible gap in squalls at 11.43am and so we struck out for the wharf. Addressing our personal hygiene in the shower block we then invaded the Panthers club where we experimented with improving our fortunes. Curiously we suffered a reversal and lost $11 between us. Indignant and irritated we were about to withdraw our custom when a friendly face hove into view. Rex, an old friend of the Admiral’s and now entertainment manager at the club, hailed us and suggested that the pokies were geared to extract money from the members not to enrich them. Our naivety exposed, Rex took us on a tour of the club. Sparrow was attracted to the concert grand in the main auditorium and played enthusiastically to an audience of three. This was more than he deserved. Beer, it seems, decreases manual dexterity.
Curvy and Sparrow’s character was then tested in extricating the Admiral from the food hall. He’d had no breakfast, you see, and t’was now nearly 177 bells. Claiming he was going into diabetic shock he charmed a pre pubescent female attending the cake counter ( “haven’t I seen you on the telly?”) into dispensing several comestibles and sweetmeats for his delectation. Recharged and with a spring in his step we launched ourselves back to Twin Spirit where we dined on mince and slices of quince just before the heavens reopened.
Currently we’re encouraged by the fact that a 65 foot Grand Banks came in across the bar at about 3pm. We reason that augers well for us getting away from here in the next decade or so. On the other hand we learned that Alan Lucas, who has forgotten more about this coast than we’ll ever know, came in here for a week and stayed for 3 months due, we presume, to the weather.