Sunday, 10th April …..

The van beside us pulled out yesterday. It must have been there for quite a while because the grass under where it had been was quite yellow. And, there, sitting quite happily , where the van had been parked, was a duck on a nest! We have been here for a week and had no idea there was a mother-to-be duck under the van next door. She must have thought she had found a nice sheltered spot and seemed not at all perturbed with all the activity around here.

When we all began to gather around to have a look, she left the nest and waddled over to us looking for a handout, leaving her 11 (yes, 11, eggs unattended. Anyway, Marilyn has moved into animal protection mode and keeps finding little snacks for the adopted feathered friend. It rained heavily last night and the poor duck looked very bedraggled but ducks are waterproof and no harm was done.

This morning, when we opened the door, the duck was waiting patiently outside for breakfast. It hasn’t taken her long to work out where her bread is buttered (if that’s not a mangled metaphor). Another van pulled in today, and began to back into the space. They did notice the nest but their van quite long and so they had to carefully back up and over the nest, making sure it was dead-centre and not in danger of the wheels. The duck was a bit flustered but only jumped off long enough for the van to come to a halt then she was straight back to her job. I don’t know whether dusks can make value judgments about their lot in life but, if so, this one is probably realizing she will be a lot more comfortable if it rains again tonight. I wonder how long it takes duck eggs to incubate. Chances are we won’t be here when the ducklings hatch out …. and that might be a good thing.

We had to get up early because we were going on a car rally, organized by our Rotary Club. I don’t know whether it was set up to coincide with the Targa Tasmania but it covered much of the same area. Given the choice of being driver or navigator, Marilyn elected to drive. It was a fantastic day and it’s been agreed we’ll do it again. Our friend, Robyn, rang Marilyn’s phone while we were on our way, and I was delighted to tell her that Marilyn couldn’t answer the phone because we were on a car rally and she was the driver. What an exciting life we lead!

It’s just a few days before we leave on our cruise so we’ve started to sort out the clothes we will need. It’s extraordinary that we have boxes of clothes in the shed but the pile we need for the cruise is just a small fraction. Some people might say that we are holding on to stuff we may never wear again but we haven’t reached that understanding yet. Maybe one day …..