This morning Jo and I took mum and dad on an orientation tour of Oakleigh, around through the shops again and over to Brickmakers park. All the water features have been dry and rusted for months now, I bet they will need replacing when they’re turned back on — if indeed they’ll ever be turned back on. The Indian Mynas and Noisy Miners seemed even noisier than normal around one tree, we finally realised it was because they were harassing a Tawny Frogmouth that was trying to be invisible against the tree trunk. Strangely, it was on either Saturday or Sunday that we’d all been saying how rarely we’d seen the frogmouths.

Lunch at Bada, a mix of nachos and tapas, slightly delayed as the waiter lost our order, but more then made up for by the quantity of food and the quality of it all!

After lunch I proposed going down to Half Moon bay. Not too hard to get too, reasonably interesting, not too strenuous!

I said Half Moon bay but it isn’t where I had meant to go. I think I’d meant Holloway Bend, which is another small, sheltered bay just off Beach road. The bays and inlets around Port Phillip Bay all seem so different when we’re driving along Beach road compared with cycling along there! Even so, it was sheltered, warm in the sun, and interesting to walk along the art trail — even if vandals have stolen three or so of the signs!

An enterprising sculptor had built a whimsical mermaid in the sand, the rising tide was removing her left arm as we approached. A few hardy kids splashed around in the bay, their parents sitting in warm clothes on the sand! More dogs on the beach — dogs can’t read the “no dogs” signs — sometimes I think that councils put up the signs to appease one set of people, then refuse to enforce them to appease the dog owners.