On Retreat (cont)

A few of my retreat friends are excellent photographers and their photos are streets away from my ordinary little photos taken with my elderly phone, so, with their permission, I’m sharing a few.

This was the sky last night, for instance, taken by my friend Marion Lennox. She’s on the 14th floor, so it’s a real panorama.

I love the contrast between the dark sky with the moon just breaking through the clouds, and the bright lights of the town below. And across the bay there’s a tiny gleam of lights from the city of Surfer’s Paradise.

 And below is dawn, taken by my friend, Fiona McArthur, whose photos I have shown before. She’s an early bird, Fi, and her facebook page is full of gorgeous beach and dawn photos.

Those colorful things on the beach you can see are temporary beach volleyball courts and change rooms — there’s a big national/international volleyball tournament taking place. We’ve watched a few games and wow! the players are so talented.

Mind you we don’t approve of the uniforms. The guys are in shorts and tank tops — fine — but the girls are in tiny bikinis or thongs and bikini-type tops! Talk about old-fashioned sexism!

We’ve been very lucky with the weather on this retreat. It’s been sunny and hot and quite humid but not unbearably so, and we have a pool and the sea over the road for swimming. And air-conditioning for when we’re writing.

But thunderstorms are predicted for today and instead of the misty ethereal, pastel dawns of the past few days, this morning was definitely a case of “red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.” So when the storm hits, we’ll be hunkered down in our rooms, writing. That’s another one of Fiona’s photos, by the way.