Tuesday we sailed the high seas again, hopping onto the ferry at Circular Quay right before it left. One of us had big sunglasses. One of us had a giant visor. One of us, the smallest one of us, had a banana.

Not twenty minutes east from the heart of the city, Watsons Bay, almost all the way to the very tip of the South Head peninsula, was a small curve of beach with a host of hopeful seagulls and a bustling fish-and-chip shop.



Hello, holidays! We have a bucket and a spade in the bag, and a big towel for the sand.

We tumbled about in the playground, on the turny things and the twisty things, and then on the climby things and the wobbly things, and then we ran through the park to the beach, to the water clear and sparkling like sapphire soda pop.



Here, we dipped our feet in the water noncommittedly; but it cooled our toes and our ankles, it lapped invitingly at our calves, and soon the hem of my skirt was wet. I bunched it half-heartedly around my knees but I knew the sun would take care of it.

We made one-bucket castles, on the beach, and we goaded the kid on toward the water. We looked out nervously for bits of broken glass, glinting green. We stalked the gulls, who edged away from us and bobbed on the little waves. We laughed, very loud, into the wide sky.



Of course there were fish and chips under a shady and welcoming tree, afterwards, and calamari and salads besides. We yelled at the seagulls and flung our arms out at them while they screeched and called in a ring around us. “No use waiting around, birds,” I said, “for there will be no chips left over.” But there were, in fact, chips left over, for we had an understanding with the gelato joint up the street – the best kind of understanding, really, tinged with the tang of a passionfruit sorbet.