Had to buy an umbrella! For the first time since we left home on 1 March it’s raining.

We walked down to Circular Quay, to the Museum of Contemporary Art where there was an installation by Olafur Eliasson, who did the weather project at Tate Modern, which we enjoyed. This was very good too; doubly so as we were able to claim concessionary prices as old codgers.

After lunch we caught the ferry to Manly. Manly is a suburb of Sydney, noted for its surf beach. It gets its name from the fact that a governor of NSW “admired the manly bearing” of the local Aborigines. Possibly he was a naval man. Not much to do there, given the rain, so we mooched around a bit and caught the ferry back.

In the evening we went to George and Natalie’s in the suburb if Lewisham. They’ve done a lot of renovation to the house and garden of which they’re justly proud (“come and see my basil!”). They’ve done it all really well, and have ‘before and after’ photos, including pics of Natalie covered in paint, and wriggling in the ceiling space. He had promised us a barbie, and wasn’t going to let the rain stand in the way, rigging up a huge canopy over the patio. We were joined by Natalie’s mum and dad, and after baby Amelia (7 weeks) had been put to bed, sat down to a feast (including kangaroo – much more sustainable in Aussie conditions than beef). This was our last night in Australia, and it couldn’t have been nicer: lights in the garden, rain pouring down…..

Last word on Australia: two countries divided by a common language. We were half-watching some crappy morning TV programme in the hotel, and the big story concerned a restaurant in Brisbane who was surcharging customers who came in wearing thongs. Why would you go out to eat in your pants? Turns out, over here when they talk about thongs they mean flip flops. When we were in Perth I had seen a sign outside a pub saying no thongs or workboots, which makes sense now. I know in Wales or somewhere they’ve had to stop people going in Tesco in their pyjamas, but pub-goers in thongs and workboots…..? I would pay a lot to see that.

On to San Francisco in the morning.