Tuesday – What to do with a half day off?

Boy, was I excited about a half a day off today. In reality it was more like two hours off, as the others who had to stay did only stay at work till about 3, as it was another scorcher.

It might as well have been a whole day off with what the course/driving instructor was talking about. Who can remember their stopping distances? I struggled to learn them in Miles an hour, and yards and feet – I haven't got a clue in kilometres and hour, and metres. Is 150 metres a long way to stop in?? Who knows?

We did learn other useful facts about Australian laws. Most are quite sensible, but one was very odd. For the purposes of law, an ambulance is only an emergency vehicle, and able to break the relevant traffic laws when it is moving. Practically if you think about that, if you have to stop at traffic lights with lights and sirens going, then you are not allowed to proceed forward through a red light. It is crazy.

When we stopped for lunch, I left the driving school, and rushed off home via a coffee shop. It was 35 to 36 degrees, so it was iced coffee for me. (I had to have a coffee as we hadn't had the requisite 4 breaks this morning.)

As I had the afternoon to myself, I had a quick shower in factor 30 sun lotion, because of the afternoon's plans. I was anticipating going down the beach for a while. I was planning to be there for a couple of hours.

Silly me, after 30 minutes I was nicely cooked, and did finally brave the sea for a cooling dip. So not bad really, almost 3 weeks before getting into the Indian Ocean, and no I wasn't harpooned, or eaten by a shark.

On the way home, I stopped for a couple of photos by the seaside, and then in true tourist fashion, fish and chips (only the second time since leaving England). My ½ day off seemed so relaxing that I didn't think it was possible to be ruined.

How wrong was I? A list of people to show around the house was sent to me by Sally, and then it didn't look like anyone had done any cleaning around the kitchen, or mopped the floors, since I did them last week, so I had to do a quick hoover up and mop the floors, and put away the pots and pans from Jack's cooking the night before. I know you might think that I am a slob, but I cannot live in a pigsty.

I did escape with a work colleague to the Saint George Hotel behind the house at about 2130 for last orders (pub closed at 2200 tonight.)

At least I was very relaxed to do the last little bit of study for the big exam tomorrow!!! It doesn't take long for a half day off work to fly by.