Wednesday

I had to put some thought into what day it was; it's a sign of a properly relaxing holiday when you struggle to define one day from the next. There were also a few wines, beers and G&Ts consumed yesterday, so excuse me if I miss any critical details.

The day started as always with Bec getting up to read while I stayed in bed ostensibly to enjoy the sunrise but actually enjoying the view of my eyelids. After breakfast and coffee (this place is FULLY decked out, including a Breville espresso maker) we took Jedi for a run up to the gate. He was still stuffed from the previous day, but managed to find the resolve to run from side to side ahead of us, bounding through the barley crop.

After showers and some reading time and after a snack-lunch of dips and toasted sandwiches I decided the sun was sufficiently over the yardarm and cracked a Pale. Ignoring the beautiful day outside I also tucked into episodes of Family Guy. It got progressively funnier with beers, and after 4 episodes and three Pales it was again time to enjoy the day. We decided to return to a beach we'd seen from the top of a ridge when clambering back from yet another beach on Tuesday. Jedi has become quite an adept mountain dog and scrambled down to the beach and was was resting in a rock pool before we even hit the ground. We sat around watching him have fun, thundering through the water and burying sticks in the loose sand. After a bit of a clamber over more rocky outcrops to see if yet more beaches were in reach we decided it was time to call it a day - and following my additional two beers on the beach, I was more than ready.

That said, I still found myself tempted to try out another goat track to a small beach we spied on the way back. I headed down and called Jedi to come with me, but he was either too smart or too tired to follow. But obviously he lost sight of Bec and decided to follow me as I trampled across a small, rocky beach looking out onto an outcrop about 100m offshore, inviting me to swim to it. Remembering my experience in San Sebastian - and the 5 beers in my belly - I instead tried to find an easy path out, but again Jedi left me and quickly found a much more direct and safe path, beating me back to the house and smiling at me from the deck as I panted my way home.

Too tired to bother showering we both changed into trackie dacks and got on the side deck with our books. It wasn't long until the sun demanded we open a light red, from Marinda Park in Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. As the sun's warmth faded, we moved inside and tackled dinner, a chicken, capsicum and mushroom risotto, and it rocked. With the light red quickly demolished we moved onto the big guns - a 2004 Zema Estate Shiraz. This Coonawarra beast is a favourite of ours, and it remains so - still big and blustery, but with elegant hints of age revealing the classic cigar box and understory characters, still overlaid with the subtle, peppery sweetness of Coonawarra fruit. It was magnificent.

Satisfied with food and wine we polished off yet more episodes of Lost, and polished ourselves off with an ill-advised gin and soda before both falling asleep on the couch.