Hot and not bothered

At Alice Springs we stayed at a B+B run by South African ex-pats, a lovely garden bungalow being our quarters. Breakfast was taken 'late' at 8.00am at a table in the garden. Above us in the trees swooped Galahs and Australian ring necked parrots. Beside us lay an affectionate sheared spaniel called 'Toffee' and up in the garden lurked a beautiful fudge coloured cat called 'Missy' watching her chance to down one of these birds.

The conversation strayed to Ireland and it turns out that the hosts are very friendly with people who live right next door to where Betty and Squirrel George lived in Connemara, Moyard. They have often visited.

There seems to be quite a contingent of people from S Africa and Zimbabwe living in Alice.

The first day we were there the temperature was 39 and the second day it was 41 degrees and with a humidity of 5%. This explains why locals get up at 6.oo am to walk. Of course Irish Poodles don't sit up that late.

At the other end of the day most people seem to be tucked up by 10.00pm and the restaurants seem to close their doors by 9.00 pm, a source of grave disappointment to us visitors.

It's great to be an unashamed tourist, after all we are all tourists to this planet. This is brought home by news we hear from home; some good friends had a child that was stillborn and another friend is extremely ill.

My gardening friend Tim Wallis says that gardening is all about 'Magic Moments'.