A few days at the beach.

I was out early to get the paper, around seven o'clock. I walked back along the beach and the water was silver glass as the sun rose over Arthur's Seat on a perfect day.

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After breakfast, we drove along the bay and were in Sorrento in five minutes. Like weekend resort towns the world over, it's a sleepy village during the week. The main street stretches lazily up the hill from the beach, the cypress pines and the ferry terminus.

We parked and unpacked the pram, lay gurgling William in it and set off for a stroll in the cool shade of the shopfront verandahs. The shops had that ten-o'clock-Monday-morning buzz. Not yet busy, just enthusiastic and waiting. A vacuum whirred in the darkness of one and further along, in the doorway of the real estate business, sat the resident staffordshire - Buster - with a giant grin on his face. Can't blame him. He's in real estate.

A little shopping then back to Blairgowrie. Lunch at the cafe, under an umbrella. The bay winking in the sun right across the road. Toasted chicken, avocado, cheese on Flinders rye. Coffee, nutty and sweet. Can we fit in a slice of hummingbird cake the size of a small launch? I think so.

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Afternoon - a book and a deckchair in the garden. Butterflies rolled around each other in the hot air, occasionally lighting on the lawn or a flower.

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Dinner started out as a warm potato salad and became something else along the way. To six delicious pink potatoes cubed, boiled and drained, I added a can of fat yellow chickpeas, a whole finely-chopped onion, a finely chopped clove of garlic, a can of flaked tuna, a shower of chopped parsley, a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, a squirt of vinegar and a blob of mayonnaise. Plenty of pepper and not too much salt. I suppose it was still a potato salad but it was moving stealthily into nicoise territory. You can't control these things.

There was enough left over for lunch.