Chilling out in Port Douglas

Today we all had a relaxing day. James, Davie and I went for a walk along Macrossan Street and had morning coffee (Davie had his favourite ice cream, mint chocolate swirl). Jamie and Ally went shopping and sorted out some of Jamie's travel arrangements for his extended stay in Australia. We met up for lunch at the apartment then spent the afternoon on Four Mile Beach. It was beautiful, fringed with palm trees and with blue and silver waves lapping onto the beach. I read for a while; I have only read three books so far this holiday - a couple of crime novels and Stephen Fry's latest instalment of his autobiography - and now I have started Ulysses by James Joyce. Yesterday I started by reading a very long introduction but it was so boring that it was putting me off the book, so today I skipped to the actual book and I'm finding it ok so far, I'm trying to read it as a narrative rather than get bogged down in all the allusions and references. Then I had a pleasant nap, until James woke me up to suggest a walk along the beach. We walked a long way along the shore, chatting as we went, then back to where the boys were diving in and out of the waves, they were having a great time. When we got back to the apartment we went into the pool for a while, then got ready to go out for dinner. we went to Zinc on Macrossan Street and had a delicious meal; Jamie and Ally both had oysters to start, Jamie's were natural on ice and Ally's were Kilpatrick which means that they were baked with bacon and garlic. Then for our main courses Jamie and Ally had fish of the day which was Emperor fish, I had butternut squash risotto, James had double cooked duck, and Davie had pasta bolognaise. We had a lovely time. We got ice creams on the way back to the apartment.