Headache

Saturday July 14th

Woke with a horrible headache this morning. We went out for dinner last night to a fish restaurant down by the marina, having left Ella in the capable hands of the hotel owner's personal babysitter, a lady who looked so much like Mrs Doubtfire that I was tempted to check the back of her neck for the underside of the rubber mask.

We offered her a glass of rioja as we left but she declined, saying "I don't drink when I'm on duty" with all the seriousness of a nurse, you know, one of those old-fashioned nurses who wore little paper caps. Unlike most nurses, however, her hourly rate was up there with accountants and lawyers. She might have looked like Mrs Doubtfire, but she was no soft touch when it came down to talking money.

Anyway, the food was good; the restaurant was offering a selection of swimmers according to the "catch of the day" so I ended up with red emperor and Darren had Moreton Bay bugs, yabbies and giant prawns, all on a bed of potato salad.

"How are the bugs?" I asked as he shelled them and left them face up on his side plate, staring at me and pointing their tentacles.

"Taste just like prawns" he replied

"And the yabbies?"

"Yeah, they taste like prawns as well. You know what, I think I'll stick to prawns in future".

It doesn't matter what you choose from a fish restaurant when you've just been snorkelling on the great barrier reef, there's always a certain amount of guilt involved because you can't get away from the suspicion that you're munching on something that might have swum innocently past your mask 24 hours previously. The red emperor was good but I felt like a traitor and had to remind myself almost constantly that it's all about food chains and the survival instinct, it's nature, we're supposed to eat fishes.

Afterwards we sat outside the Court House Hotel, which had a live act on. They were so good that many of the drinkers had got up to dance on the pavement. And so it was that we ended up sharing a table with Lucy and some other sixth-form aged kids who she'd made friends with on our boat out to the reef. They were busy laughing at the old people up there dancing, though they did sing along to the music, at least, until they cranked up Bryan Adams' "Summer of Sixty Nine".

Then they all went quiet.

"You not singing any more?" I shouted over the noise.

"We don't know this one" shouted back Zoe from Perth. "It was out before we were born".

"Jesus" I said to Darren. "Get me another gin, and make it a double".