Meeting and Sleeping

The beach is a great meeting place, I suppose for no other reason that people spend so much time there. Marcus, the estate agent who sold us this house, told me he often did deals "out the back" ie bobbing up and down beyond the wave-break on his surf board. And Luke, the MP for whom I work, often gets harangued about everything from the Pacific Highway to industrial relations when he dons his boardies and wanders down to Diggers, where we used to live.

My own meetings are simpler, I'm glad to say. Among the regulars on the dawn shift at Sandy Beach is Ann, a colleague of Sara's whose terrier sometimes licks the salt off my legs when I've been running. Actually, it's not quite so simple, because Ann comes from Bethesda, so there's an element of coincidence. But it's very simple for the dog.

On Saturday, I was wandering along, sizing up the surf, when I saw a familiar figure in T-shirt and boardies, board under his arm, clearly making his way back into the village. I see him often but don't know his name. Had he been in, I asked? No, he replied. "I came down early but then I fell asleep and now the wind's come up. Tomorrow morning about 7.30 to eight. I'll give it another go then." I went home, changed and surfed despite the wind.

Come 8.30 on Sunday, I was in the water and noticed the same bloke - same T-shirt, boardies and board - and watched him make his way down to the end of the beach, put down his board on the little dunes, lie face down in the sand, and evidently fall fast asleep. He was still there when I left, desperate for breakfast, some time later.

I suppose there's simplicity in the fact that, if you don't feel like doing anything, you can just lie down on the beach in the middle of winter and fall asleep, but I can't help feeling there are one or two questions hanging in the air as well.