Arriving on the doorstep, we found the place deserted, though the front door was unlocked.
A check revealed I'd neglected to turn on the mobile before departure from Margaret River, and when that oversight had been remedied I found a text message from a couple of hours earlier asking for an E.T.A. It took a while to elicit a response, and in the meantime I indulged the imagination in various worst case scenarios while Madam made a photographic excursion to the beach.
The explanation, when it arrived, was predictably prosaic.
Given an errand that needed to be done by five, Elaine had waited for a response to her inquiry, and when it failed to arrive by four had left a note on the front door, and headed off on the errand. The complicating factor was the presence of two front doors. I'd gone to the wrong one, so I hadn't sighted the note. In any case, that was a minor hiccough, and we spent a relaxed evening after a visit to the local fish and chippery, heading off to the cot at a reasonably early hour before our last full day away.
