A Drug Arm Proposition

Our team hit the streets again last night and we patrolled the northern beaches, checking out some new sites and visiting the well known haunts of kids (and older) who find themselves at a drunk or high loose end on Saturday night. It was very quiet, even though the weather was decidedly warmer and the wind had dropped. In fact the ocean was almost a dead calm. We soon found our way down to Manly where we found a police car camped at our usual park. We pulled in beside them but the police are a sure fire deterrent to kids who might want to talk to us about drug and alcohol issues. They left after a few minutes but “traffic” was still slow. Then we were treated to two highlights.

The first had nothing to do with what we were doing but was merely a factor of being where we were – as we watched the surf we noticed that with increasing frequency waves were being lit from inside by what looked like lightening strikes of green light, Some incredibly bright and spectacular shows. Bio luminescence at work. I have never seen any thing like it.

And I had never seen anything like the large woman who, with a complete skinful, in her late forties or so – hard to tell sometimes – turned up with her battered scallops clasped in one hand and in a drunken rasping voice asked for a cup of hot chocolate. As I was whisking that up for her she decided a hot drink was not enough and asked for a cuddle. My colleagues were appalled. I had to decline this advance, which was followed by a few more requests, on the basis that cuddles were only issued on week days, not weekends. As she processed that we quickly packed up and did a bolt up the road to where earlier we had seen a group of kids. Drunk teenagers, one of whom then tried to steal our light, were a far safer proposition than her insistent overtures. And we were able to share with them our wonder of the sparkling, glowing surf.