We bore down on the fish cafe with the grim determination of a family having been deprived of food for weeks on end.

Bicheno was bright and beachy.

The sea at The Gulch was reassuringly blue, holding the promise of a feed of fish so fresh we’d have to grab it before it leapt from its Catch of the Day basket.

Now, what to drink with such tasty fare? We’d walked many a sandy mile.

Beer was the stand-out choice.

I ordered an ale and was heading to a table with the stubby when the daughter announced that the kids wanted to sit outside.

No worries, I said and strode towards the door,

“You’re not allowed to take alcohol outside,” she hissed.

Here was a dilemma.

I wasn’t going to waste a perfectly good beer.

The kids were holding their ground on the outdoor dining.

I had only one option; I had to guzzle the stubby.

This involved me lurking in a darkened corner of the caff, swigging away in what looked like undue haste.

There may be spectacles more unedifying than an elderly woman standing alone in a dimly-lit indoor recess guzzling ale from a bottle.

Still, at that moment, it would have been difficult to imagine one.

“Needs must,” I muttered to no-one in particular, the kids having decamped to a picnic table possibly in a move to avoid the embarrassment of seeing their grandmother on the turps.

“Waste not, want not.”

The fish was absolutely delicious.

We sat at our grog-less picnic table, the kids and daughter happily downing fruit juices, me whining about the beer, my stomach noisily reacting to having alcohol shot into it too quickly.

I consoled myself that evening with several glasses of east coast vineyard finest.

The next night we lined up for a meal at a pub with an electronic table menu.

I stared at the device, totally mystified.

It might as well have been the Rosetta Stone.

Leaving the kids to sort out the parmies, I interacted meaningfully with the bar.

Someone had to smooth the menu pathway if we were going to get in an order before the cook clocked off for the night.

The next morning, mercifully fed, we had to leave early.

All was going to plan until I remembered I’d promised to deliver a bottle of red wine to a friend.

Throwing a cardigan over a grubby top, I sped towards the pub.

My arrival there coincided with the bottle shop woman unlocking the door.

I barged past her towards the red wine shelf, almost knocking her down in the process.

Pinot procured it was back to the house to finish packing, hit the road and handed over the wine.

I remarked to the daughter that if I hadn’t made a name for myself as a tosspot before this, I had by now.

“I wouldn’t worry,” my daughter said. “People wouldn’t have noticed the wine bottle.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Your cardy’s inside out,” she said.