No chance of sleeping in with a two-year-old in the house! Jack made sure that everyone was awake and out of bed – especially when given a little hint by Jo.

A family outing to pick apples at Allenvale was a minor failure, rains early in the season had meant that the crop was tiny, so we abandoned the apple picking and went for a bushwalk to Phantom Falls. No blackberries to be found either, and only a minute trickle was running down the rock face of the falls. The pools were stained black from decaying trees, so there doesn’t seem to have been much rain in recent times.

Later in the afternoon I had to get out of the house and go for a walk by myself, peace and quiet is a precious commodity with six adults and Jack around! I spent the afternoon wandering around the beach and parks, watching the surf and the gulls, smelling the autumn leaves and the smoke, and generally just having an enjoyable time. The beach was covered in feathers, weed and cuttlefish, all washed up by the last storm — the feathers are too big for gulls, but I’ve no idea what they’re from.

I tried to take photos of all the different gulls and terns, but with my camera its too hard to get close enough — the trade-off between pocket-ability and SLR-like functionality.

Along the way I met a man with a 1950 Vincent motorbike, and stupidly didn’t get a photo of it. I have no idea what model it was, but it was in mint condition and looked and sounded beautiful.