Thusday 30th March

Best sleep yet!  In bed by about 9:45pm, woke up a couple of times during the night, including for the roosters, but no bugs, no crabs, and no specific reason to get up early.  Out of bed at 8am.  Still the last one out of bed though. 

Today we had no plans, so this will probably be a short post.  Rory and Elle were in the pool ASAP as expected.  Rory’s legs are so brown it’s nuts. Already browner than my arms by far.  We have a rule in place now – out of the pool before 11am and no getting back in until afternoon tea is complete.

Lunch was burger sliders, pretty good.  Some had hot sauce on them of course.  Easy to avoid though.  Rory and Elle discovered the main kitchen today, and spent a lot of time there.  From what we can tell Romina has given them a bunch of tasks and they are taking their roles very seriously.  I have to set alarms on my watch for when they need to get back to the kitchen to do the next thing.  I heard one of the jobs was watching the washing machine?  Need to discover how she has done this.

After lunch Bill (Romina’s husband) came charging in (he’s what you would call “a bit of a character”), and asked if Rob and I could help him and some guys lift a neighbour’s gate up.  We put some clothes and shoes on and jumped in the back of his ute and drove down the street.  There was a 10m wooden horizontal roller door that had been blown over in the storm(s).  We lifted it up and put it back on the track, but it needed a lot more work before it would be functional.  It seems that even though Bill/Romina have a lot of work to do on their place, they’re still looking after the neighbours.  Do they have some arrangement?  Or is it just being good neighbours?  Unsure.  I guess Romina and Bill’s place is mostly good to go, considering we’re here.  After fixing up the door, we walked through the property and had a look at the shoreline – more rough rocks and no beach.  Lots of small inlets though, it looked like good snorkelling.  We inspected a couple of the houses too; Bill had a DSLR camera to take some photos to send back to the owners I guess.  The houses weren’t destroyed, but there was some proper damage – balconies caved in by trees falling, water damage everywhere.  In one of the places, we went inside and the standby light was still on on the TV!  It was bloody hot out in the sun; we were glad to jump in the pool (even if the water was about 30°C) when we got back.

Afternoon tea came, and like clockwork Rory and Elle got ready for the pool.  I made Rory wait 10 mins after putting sunscreen on to get in, and she waited without complaining, but did check the time a lot.  Probably 10 minutes after Rory got in, Elle decided she had had enough and got out.  Rory continued mucking around in there, but I did feel bad when even she got out on her own accord.  At first I thought I should probably try and hop in and play with her tomorrow, but then I realised she was feeling time pressure to get back into the kitchen with Romina and the other house staff – it was time to start helping with their dinner.  Rory and Elle brought food out reasonably diligently, and I dropped Phoenix off for some din dins in the outside hut near the ocean.  We sat down near them to have some bread and cheese, and chatted to Romina and Bill, where he told me a bit of his life story (Dad worked at Amway, moved to the US from AU when he was 13).

It was then time to bath that little fella, and I decided we might do something different tonight, so I took him down to the rock pool we had gone to on the second day, nuded him up, and descended the stairs… the little guy struggled with the cold and kept trying to climb up me while also holding on very tightly.  He didn’t cry, but whimpered for most of it.  It was pretty dark at this point, but we stayed in for 5 minutes before I succumbed to his request.  After handing him over to Lizl for milkies, I thought I should check on Rory – she wasn’t with Elle (who was with Lisa reading a book).  I went back to the kitchen, and she was sitting on one of the kitchen tables eating ice cream and talking authoritatively to Romina about something or other.  It turns out Romina was very impressed with Rory and all the things she knew – counting, reading, and writing.  Romina made a point of telling me that Rory was inspiring the next generation of mothers (the house staff that was in the kitchen with them).  Apparently being smart is looked down upon.  From what I can tell Rory is better with numbers than most of them.  When it was time to go, Romina made Rory stand up on a big box and tell everyone in the kitchen her “fact of the day”.  Rory confidently told everyone that when turtles are born they get to the ocean as quickly as possible.  Romina pressed her a bit on why, Rory clearly didn’t know but did confirm that she learnt this from Rainbow Rangers.  Everyone clapped.  Then Romina gave her a hug and asked if Rory could give each of the staff a hug one by one, to which Rory agreed.

Things of note

• Something has bitten or scratched me on my left shin in about 4 places.  Periodic bouts of itchiness, really annoying and not very satisfying to scratch, and it keeps recurring.  Wish it would go away.
• Forgot to mention yesterday – had two pina coladas in the pool.  Hard to beat.  Today at one point Romina said “how about I just make you guys a bunch of pina coladas and you can come and get them when you want?  Yes please.
• Bill thinks crypto is a scam, and is happy to talk forever about things he likes, and then changes the subject/doesn’t contribute if he doesn’t like the topic it seems.  Guess I’ll be talking about the hardness of money in longform tomorrow!
• Apparently labour is about $3/hour, but everything has to be done 3 times, they can’t think for themselves, constant public holidays, etc.  Sounds frustrating.