Went to Port Melbourne and got some Sand in my Shoes

I found myself maudlining along a beach yesterday morning (strange).

Had driven my favourite, darling creature to a job interview and then realised that for at least an hour I was going to feel a bit lost. I was alone in Port Melbourne with no purpose (of all places). I walked towards the beach and trudged though the sand beside water inappropiatly in suede boots. I watched personal trainers and their trainees get stuck on stairs, forever walking up one or two steps only to reverse back down and try again. I kicked into a great pile of pippy shells. A small dog did a circle around me as it passed with it's owner. I picked up a few shells that stood out, still pippies, but in colours I like. An orange, fat man got rather undressed for the weather and public and entered the water without a flinch or flicker of self-consciousness. I looked for sea glass, but didn't find any. I lay my black velevet jacket on the sand underneath me and curled up with a book. I dozed off, just a bit.

I dream-thought about the beaches in Scotland and then about Dubrovnik.

When I woke up I was still in Port Melbourne. It was very quiet. The trainers and trainees were gone. the dog and his man had moved on, and the orange fat man was now just a head gliding across top of the water, back and forth in straight lines. I got up and ran back to my car. It had been over an hour and I was due for a parking ticket. I moved Fog to the other side of the road and found my familar. We ate chicken on the beach together and considered the seagulls warily. When we were severly outnumbered we moved to a cafe that served very well suited men and women with extra pointy shoes. Maybe some of the women's faces didn't quite match their hands and maybe I could have felt sorry for them for that, but then, they had a rather-nice-for-monday-morning bottle of wine join them at the table and seemed quite content with it all.

Luke observed that there were ships carrying tonnes of cargo appearing out of nowhere and then disapearing just the same. Nobody else seemed to care about this, much like his observation of peacocks waiting at Alphington Station.

Such an odd place to put a beach.