3 days on the island - 3.5

Saturday morning was a shocker. My wife managed to have us all up and dressed by 7.30. The rain sheeted down. It was too early to visit anyone. Um.

There was a slight break in the weather and we drove down to the concrete pontoon that seemed to be the best spot for catching something (colds). By the time we were out of the car - precipitation. Blustery wind. I had a sense that five minutes of "fishing" in this might at least put the subject to bed for a few months.

Marcus is actually pretty deft with the fishing rod, so I put it together and left him to it while I got Michael going with a handline. Waves washed over the pontoon behind us. It was eerily similar to the wet 'n' wild ride of the day before.

"Dad - what do you do when this happens?" Marcus's rod had a decorative but unhelpful snarl of line, great frothy loops of it everywhere. After about three-and-a-half minutes fishing was over. Again - back in the car, back home, drying by the fire.

We cleaned the shack, and at a more sociable hour drove over to visit Lorraine. She has a lovely spot with quite a bit of land - a big vege plot, chooks etc. Elf's boss Jude and her daughter were there - they had come over the day before to go to a play in Adventure Bay. We had thought of going too, but thankfully we were too knackered.

Jude's review was; it was very long, very deep, worked on lots of levels - not very good though. But the raspberry slice at intermission was just like her mum used to make! I looked at the program, and there was a character in it named Nurse Nicebottom.

And that was it. We drove back to Roberts Point to catch the ferry home. We just had time to buy some chocolate at the tiny shop there, and use the toilets out the back. The toilets are fantastic! There are potplants, and the line of urinals is decorated with a print of an old painting of the founding of Hobart, which hangs at eye level. There are various bits of ephemera tacked to the walls, including a couple of pages from a manual on ejaculation control.

Fifteen minutes on the ferry and twenty-five on the road later, we were home. Winston was pleased to see us, but after spending three days with three other dogs, he was just so tired from playing all day. Two days later he is practically back to normal.