Surf Club

‘Just as we were amazed to look out at the sea on the Cinque Terre, people must come here and think the same. The view is beautiful,’ offered Claire.

‘I’m sure that’s true,’ I replied instantly, if a little ungenerously.

About 5.30pm on Friday, we’d somehow snaffled a table on the balcony at the Glenelg Surf Club. The waters of Gulf St. Vincent were flat and dazzling and postcardy. To our south the squat jetty swarmed with folks and kids, leaping into the drink, from the pylons. I hoped some had on their best swimming jeans.

Having established a theme, Claire pursued it with relaxed tenacity. ‘If there were tourists staying in the city, I reckon they’d really enjoy it in here. Don’t you think?’

I love a surf club, too. They’re proudly local and chances are your beer will be served by a young, often uncertain, clubbie getting up a few volunteer hours. The prices are decent, the grub’s often excellent and you know your coin’s doing communal good.

We then bought (unsuccessful) tickets in the meat raffle and this was also a petite joy.

To celebrate this tremendous fortune, we had a bag of chips (not my idea, I confess) and then discussed how our British friends are probably wise to call these crisps to differentiate them from their direct-from-the-deep-fryer brethren. It would save us the frequent indignity of this conversation:

                Shall we get some chips?

                Sure. Hot chips or cold chips?

                Cold.

                Why don’t we call them crisps in Australia?

                Yeah, like the Poms. Would make life easier.

                Dunno.

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Vampire Weekend

After five years, one of my favourite bands dropped (nobody releases music anymore) two new songs, ‘Capricorn’ and ‘Gen-X Cops.’ The former is wonderfully atmospheric and reminiscent of their acclaimed 2013 album Modern Vampires of the City with its introspective lyrics about the past and our fragile hopes. Musically, there’s a lovely piano solo, string accompaniment, and a fetching melody that echoes some of their finest moments on tracks such as ‘Step’ and my desert island certainty, ‘Hannah Hunt.’

Claire and I saw Vampire Weekend at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre as part of their Father of the Bride tour in January 2020. It was magnificent with 27 songs played across nearly three hours. About four songs in that night the stage lost power twice and we feared our night would be unhappily early, but the faceless electricians got the voltage happening and the show went on. On the third attempt, they got through the delightfully named, ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.’

For me their music is literate and fun and smart. It connects to Paul Simon’s Graceland in style and execution. When it’s out in April, just after Easter, I’ll be all over the new album, Only God Was Above Us.

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Roast Beef

Although it’s February we decided to have a Saturday roast. It’d been months since our last, probably in winter and so we enlisted the appropriately named Beefmaster barbeque and utilized the indirect method (does sound like an unsatisfactory form of contraception).

Is there a more comforting sound than that of a hunk of beef spitting and sizzling in the pan?

Food often lacks an accompanying musical score, so this is always a welcome domesticated commotion. I find the challenge is to just leave it alone and not lift the lid too frequently. I treat the meat like a kind of culinary Schrodinger’s Cat, wanting to peer at it constantly as if it’s slow art, thus lengthening maddeningly, the cooking time. Preparing a roast is best done as a duet with Claire being the gently guiding Dolly to my slightly dazed and doddery Kenny.

It was affirming ye olde fayre with the roasted cauliflower (is it really the poor cousin of broccoli; methinks not) and Belgium’s finest cabbage derivative, brussel sprouts, both emerging as unlikely stars and receiving a sitting/ standing ovation from us.

At 6.37pm on the patio attending to the soothing symphony coming from under the rangehood and nursing a sparkling ale (me) and gin (Claire) all was (briefly) right in our tiny beachy nook.