Things that happen in the dark...

To run over or not to run over? That was the question a friend of mine asked me while we were driving in the countryside of UK where animals often cross paths with speeding cars. I know my frivolous answer will be 'depending on whether the animal is cute'.

I've never ran over any animal in all my trips, altho Larry has collided with a bird, stopped in time for a water buffalo and a wallaby in Northern Territories, and I have in other instances, tail-gated sheeps and wombats.

But what about going head-on with a cute koala bear? To be fair, I could not tell if it was 'cute', but it was sitting lazily in the middle of the windy curves of Great Ocean Road, and my night rider was driving his 100th time on the familiar same stretch (read: speeding), and in a split second, I saw it right in our path, staring at us, and while I let out a short "eeeeeeeeeeeeks!", I could hear the sound of 'wham, bam!'. Shocked, I did not dare contemplate how it could have survived the impact, but swerving was not an option along this treacherous coastal stretch in pitch black darkness. Assessing the damage, the number plate was dented, the plastic covering it was smashed and the plastic underneath the car was scraped off. I wondered if Mr Koala died without pain, hopefully the absence of blood and gore proves it.

Other than this almost macabre incident, it was a nice day in Lorne. I love being near the beach, waking up to a relaxed feeling, having an outdoor brekky at the Arab, and popping into the unit to read and rest and out again to walk along the falls, rivers and art galleries. We finished with dinner at Ba Ba Lu - a spanish restaurant with a band playing jazzy-type music while we indulged in grilled optopus, chorizo with caramelised onion jam and a mushroom and rocket entree. I love it!


Illustrations for the more visually inclined- the view from the car by day and by night:

I'm in denial again...

I'm back into the in-denial-about-my-CPA phase. I found a midnight game of Scrabble to be more interesting, (I won!) and we played our 2nd challenge on the rooftop on an Autummy Melbourne day. Unfortuntately, 'Autummy' is not a real word, and even more unfortunately, 'Launders' is... and according to the rules of Scrabble, using all that 8 tiles allowed my opponent to gain that 50 bonus points that made me contemplate either jumping off the roof, or pushing him off.

Had a meal and jaunt at The Maling Room after the game and really enjoyed the Serrano ham, an nice latte and a homemade quiche. Yummss.. smacks lips... Maling Road in Canterbury is quite an attraction in itself, with art galleries, fromagerie, boulangerie and chocolaterie in rows of Edwardian style shophouses.

Past the daylight savings hours, I'm now nursing a porterhouse steak, rocket salad, earl grey tea, soy bean milk and a 'bao' (bun). Oh, did I even say I didn't have to cook any of that! I lurrve it!


The 1st Scrabble Challenge

Armchair Holiday

I spent the last hour ignoring my CPA notes and was instead, taking an armchair holiday. At last count, I was at Fairhaven watching the 4 metres waves crashing up the shoreline. I wanted to take a little trip somewhere before I start on my new job, but everything happened so fast that I'm only left with this weekend.

It's been a month since my last trip to the beach, although it feels way too long. Come think of it, it'll be nice to be sitting in the quiet night right now with the sound of the waves and the crescent moon shining above, tracing silvery paths of the little twinkling stars in the utter darkness of the night isn't it?

The last time I did that, I was lying on the beach till 3am, counting 22 shooting stars that flew by.

I have to be dreaming...