Sanity Fifteen Minutes Away

I live in an apartment in Southbank, very close to South Melbourne. It has huge advantages – I can walk to work, and pretty much stroll to any convenience under the sun. Our apartment is reasonable in size, on the twenty-third floor, and offers an incredible view of Southbank’s skyline, the "Gee" and Rod Laver Stadium, Albert Park, and a breathtaking view of the coastline – Port Melbourne, St Kilda, Brighton etc.

When you have a nasty flu, and a bout of angioedema, it is like being in a small birdcage, and a cooped-up four year old girl doesn’t help – no siree. So I can praise my wife for suggesting, despite our battle scars with health, that I struggle out and go to the beach at Port Melbourne. Great idea – and it was.

We were only there around two hours, but it made a world of a difference. It was sanity. Recuperative. And best of all, fifteen minutes drive down the road. Another advantage of where I live.

As it turned out, this was the first day since last summer, that a hot day magically appeared – admittedly a little too warm on the beach, but hey, for a four year old to paddle in the Bay’s water, fantastic. Now for those of you who don’t know Melbourne, because we are on a Bay the beaches are simply not like Sydney’s – no competition, and probably most of the coastline. Australia generally has vast numbers of perfect, fine, white sand and wonderful waves – not so the Bay. But, the little one didn’t care at all (water – that is all it has to be), and frankly, the return of Sanity was all I was focused on. Hallelujah!

Our beach shelter at Port Melbourne’s ‘beach’ Erin having the time of her life