I got up early this morning, and went over to the jetty with my trusty rod. The first cast hooked a crab, which was a little tricky to disentangle! I let him go.

My fellow fisherman was an elderly guy who had been out since 4 a.m. …oh my goodness, keen or what? Anyway he had 3 King George whiting and several squid, and he kindly gave me some of his bait. It was all very companionable, and he told me he had caught a sea snake yesterday at dawn…it was poisonous with coloured stripes. I could just imagine the panic if I had done the same! Hurled it on to the jetty then ran like the clappers! He said he cut its head off, and the sea gulls came to inspect, but they all squawked in alarm as the body was still wriggling about. Ugh. He’d also caught a dog shark, pretty big, but he put it back. I was secretly just a little relieved when 2 dolphins swam past looking for breakfast…whenever they are about, fishermen might as well go home. So I did. I just want to catch manageable fish.

I had big plans to go for a walk, but our beach is overrun with tents and flags and the sea is covered in horrid dinghies zooming around orange inflatable cones.

There is to be a HUGE surf boat competition this weekend, with competitors from all over Australia taking part. To escape this jamboree of noise and craziness John and I have decided to do a road trip up to the Mount Remarkable National Park, where we are going to do some walking in the Flinders Range. It all sounds very good, and hopefully we will be able to do it ourselves without a tour guide. I have suddenly become very brave about natural wild life after spying a Hunter spider on our balcony. It has been very busy building mansions for itself in all four corners and its larders are just bursting with flies and bugs. I think he is quite an asset, so long as he stays out in his own territory.

We went to see the Cuban Ballet Revolucian on Tuesday, which was billed as ‘Sex is coming to the City’ and to be honest, it was absolutely red hot and fantastic. Eat your heart our Mr Chippendale!

The choreography was amazing with hip hop, classical, rumbas and sambas all intermingling. I came home practically deaf from the pounding music, and tried to balance in the bathroom, with my leg up on the sink. I wasn’t game to run across the room and throw myself at John. I think I would have mowed him down. Why do these dancers make women look so light and winsome? (maybe because they don’t cook chocolate fudge brownies in the afternoon like me…the apartment smells deeeevine by the way!)

Anyway sitting next to us was a young woman, who kindly leant us her programme. She had driven 8 hours from Victoria to come to Adelaide. She said it was a whim! We passed a few minutes chatting during the interval and then she invited me to drive back with her to Melbourne. I almost agreed. I was so tempted. But I didn’t because I had agreed to go on a blind date with another woman the following day. She was the mother of someone I had met on the plane, and she had kindly rung me and asked me to lunch. Suddenly from no friends I was inundated with offers! That night after balancing in the bathroom, (with my leg up on the sink) I thought of Robert Frost, and the path less travelled.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 Thoughts can get carried away, but you do often wonder what would have happened if you had chosen the other path. Such is life.

So I will never know about the mystery woman and her whim, and her story and the history that made her what she is, and I suppose in a way I shall regret it.

Instead I met Sharon, whose life turned on its head, and she found herself in Australia. She’s an American, and had been living in Alaska with bears and moose that ate her flowers, and then suddenly she is here in Adelaide learning to live another kind of life and make new friends at the age of 64. Her son married an Australian girl 11 years ago, and they invited her to visit, and after a couple of visits they presented her with a key four years ago, and it was to a beautiful house just 8 away from their own. Now she has a garden full of native plants, a dog, a grandson, and best of all, warm winters.

Life is full of surprises. We sat in the sun and ate calamari and prawn salads and talked about quilting and Alaskan salmon. This is what she misses more than anything. And later I walked home, along the beach.