After some fairly frenzied packing last night I crashed quite late, but because of the nervous energy which has been so carefully stowed away for the past few weeks escaping I was up quite early this morning. Very out of character for me.
I'm feeling a lot perkier since I started a course of antibiotics; I've noticed in the past with sinus infections you can tell within a few hours of taking the first tablet whether it's viral or bacterial, the difference being that if it's viral you still feel like shit. My ears have stopped hurting too because the pressure on my sinuses has reduced so much, so I'm not paranoid about having a flight-inhibiting middle ear infection anymore.

Sigh, hypochondria aside, Helen and I had an eventful day today: she actually saw her life flash before her eyes. We decided to go to the beach to have breakfast, and even though it was overcast we took our swimmers down with us because, while we both know better and that it's bad and causes cancer, a tan wouldn't be half bad before heading off to Sweden/Melbourne. We wandered down to Cafe Bohemia, and had the usual big breakfast: bacon, eggs, baked beans, tomato, mushroom, a sausage, and three massive hunks of toast, and then sort of waddled down to the beach.

I have to say, we probably should have known better. You see, there were about 15 lifeguards on the beach, about three times the usual amount, and really not many people in the water, and while the waves looked biggish, we assumed that it was the glacial waterr-temp keeping people out. After jumping in once, we decided it was far too cold to go swimming, but then I decided we shouldn't be such pussies and we both got back in the water. Like I say, we should have known better. The waves, which, like I said, had looked biggish from the sand, were at least 2 metres. And they were coming in sets of three without much space between. Helen didn't have her glasses on, so I was trying to look out for her, but at the same time being distracted by how cold it was and trying to get out past the breakers before the next set came. Well, I obviously didn't get far enough because I saw this massive wave sorta bearing down on top of me, and I got separated from Helen, who'd decided this wasn't much fun and she was going back to the shore. Unfortunately, I was exactly at the point where the waves were breaking..on top of me. My only option really, was to go down, so I waited until the very last moment, then took as big a breath as I could and crouched as tightly as I could with my feet on the sand. The only way I can describe the force of these waves is "uncomfortably powerful". The first bit of the wave breaking wasn't so bad, but it was the wash right behind it that was really awful, the sort where it feels like your arms and head might be about to get ripped off. And the worst part, was that they were coming in sets of three very close waves so as soon as one was over, there was another right on top of me.

Meanwhile, Helen had been heading back to the shore, but hadn't gotten close enough so she was not only getting pounded by the incoming wave, but the rush of the outgoing water. And she got knocked off her feet so she was getting thrown around like a sparrow in a storm. Three times over.

I felt ok, I just wanted out of the water, but I've been in much rougher surf than that before, and I'd been watching the sets before we got in the water, so I was expected the three waves and was reasonably ready to have the shit knocked out of me. But because she'd been knocked over, Helen kept getting dumped really badly and was fairly traumatised and jelly-legged when we finally made it out of the water, swimmers full of sand, adrenalin pumping, and more than a little breathless.

We really should have known better.

Anyway, after that, the rest of the day was really a walk in the park. We chilled on the couch for a while and then I did a whole lot more packing, which made me grumpy because it doesn't seem to matter how much shit I throw out, there keeps being more. The strangest thing though, is that I keep finding used Australia Post padded parcel bags. It seems like everytime in the last two years that someone has sent me something, I've kept the bag in the misguided belief that one day I'll reuse it. The result then, was little stashes of them everywhere, in drawers, under drawers, inside other padded Australia Post parcel bags. As though they had bred in the night. And even when I think I've thrown them all out, I find another stashed somewhere.

Oh, if I see another parcel bag, I will lose my mind.