Sept 2022, Nambucca Heads, NSW

We take long walks and I find a rather nice helmet Cassidae shell on the beach. They’re fishing for bream on Shelly Beach.

I have a walk along the V Wall, it always feels like half the townsfolk are out here having their morning exercise. Woody walks up to the highway and VeeWee and I pick him up on our way to lunch at the Macksville Hotel.

We sit in the courtyard where there’s a mural dedicated to the late cricketing great Phillip Hughes who was a Macksville lad. My lamb fajitas are delicious. MV texts to say that she’s back in the hospital, bugger! They couldn’t join us this winter because of her health. Then my aunt rings to tell me that my cousin has died of a massive stroke. We’re gutted.

When I get back to the van I ring old friend L to tell her about my cousin (as kids we grew up on properties on either side of my cousin’s farm). She tells me that they’re at home. Her husband had a serious heart attack in Port Douglas and they had to fly home after he had a stent put in in Cairns.

While Woody walks home from Macksville, I take a bracing walk on the beach we’re both trying to clear our heads.