shopping on a spring tide

It's the little things about a new environment that I find fun and enchanting. Gold Coast? Sunshine Coast? Wild lorikeets? Bats at twilight? Wild kangaroos? Nahhhh...how about not being able to push the grocery-laden stroller up the ferry ramp during a waning gibbous moon? That's fun and worth writing about! I had just discovered the Woolworth’s (“Woolies” in the dimunitive-loving Aussie vernacular) across the river in Bulimba. Now that I’m a housewife, I get so excited about the good grocery shopping (plus, it didn't have the skeezy edge of the Coles in New Farm). My friend, Kristen, left me in the baby food section and I never made it past the organic baby purees into the actual adult food sections before it was time for us to leave. Happily loaded down with toothpaste, organic mashes for The Bun and a brand new Tommee Tippee sippy cup, I made my way to the ferry to cross over into my neck of the woods. We boarded the ferry and I got my usual little happy surge that THIS is public transportation, crossing the river in a cute little boat. Alighting on the other side, there was a surprise in store. The ramp on the Teneriffe ferry is narrow and quaintly vintage with HUGE bumpy wood strips and it’s always a bit of a trick getting the Bugaboo up it at any time. Today, it was downright impossible and I trailed baby blankets and Courtney Love (The Bun’s beloved stuffed frog) on my bumbling way up. A guy waiting to board had to come down and help drag the whole contraption up while another guy held the gate open and the bicyclist coming up after us picked up the trailing baby gear. “Why is this damn ramp so hard to get up?” I was thinking. I didn’t buy THAT much stuff! It finally ocurred to me...the tides. Physics. Waxing and waning of the moon. Full moon spring tides. Dur. So now I plan my Woolies shopping trips around the phases of the moon. These are the things I love about new places...