Boxing Day

We wake later than everyone else and when I walk bleary eyed into the kitchen Aunty Jude says: oh, you look lovely today. Cousin Bradley jumps in with: as opposed to yesterday. He offers to cook us breakfast on the barbie despite the fact that Dave has already cleaned it following the first breakfast sitting. We read the papers over bacon and eggs on the verandah and it's bright, white hot already. Peter Beattie thinks he is up for federal politics, Warnie is intimidating Ponting on the field and tsunami is already one year ago.

In no time inexplicably it's lunch and we're eating ham, turkey and seven types of salad and drinking yet more white wine. There's talk of Scrabble before we tend the tennis court in the cool of the afternoon. After a few chapters of Christina Stead on the sofa, cricket test in the background, I wake to find the ant bed court already raked and lined. First it's a cup of tea accompanied by a sweet platter, and we wonder how we've got this far through Christmas without rum balls. We start tennis just before six and it's still way too hot. My new padded visor is soaked with sweat but the pace of the court ultimately works for us, and we're committed. We lose track of the score at one point and I'm prepared to vote for 1-6 if it means we can stop now for a drink but Noonie insists on 2-5 and I'm forced to play through. I get to 3-5 before she agrees that she needs a breather as well. Jude and Lorraine join us and it's twilight and cooler. The smoke haze makes the trees soft and purple across the plain.

After dinner the best Scrabble word is svelte and it's the first one that Bradley puts down. David hovers over our shoulders muttering words and their spellings under his breath until we tell him to go and sit down at the head of the table.