'75 percent of people are idiots', my father used to say. On a bad day, it'd go as high as eighty five percent. The older I get, the more I agree with him.

Yesterday, at the crowded foreshore market with my sister, I though about how much Dad would have hated the market and unequivocally a firm rejection to our offer to come, unlike Jamie who politely apologised for being 'busy with a gearbox'. Summer in Australia on the coast is crazy. The population swells like the lip of a child stung by a bee that landed on her lemonade. It's rude and hot and red like sunburn. There is nothing soft about an Australian summer on the coast - it's burning hot sand, and crowds, and rubbish, and post COVID, dog shit.

I am irritable about the dogs. They are everywhere. Groodles and whippets and greyhounds and kelpies. Idiots with huskies, for goodness sake, because the climate here is so similiar to Siberia - yes, I'm being sarcastic. The dogs are now in Bunnings, our DIY megastore that is like a church to Australians. Dogs mooch up the garden aisle as if looking for a tree to piss on. There's french bulldogs snorting in the paint aisle. Why, I wonder, are their dogs now in Bunnings?

It is not the dogs, I know, but the owners who give me the irits, the ones who thought a fur baby would ease their anxiety over the looming threat of death brought on by the pandemic. People who paid thousands and thousands for the breed they thought the prettiest, the toy dogs that would adorn laps. Now we have an epidemic of misbehaving canines and owners who argue the toss online about incidents on the beaches where dogs bowl over children and pick up chihuahuas to shake about like rabbits. The owners who take thier dog to the rescue centre because they cannot manage it, or have had to go back to work. Idiots.

And then there's the cats. A community post last week screamed about 'two asians' - because that was important - coaxing a cat toward thier car, resulting in a Trumpian 'they're eating the cats' kinda racism that had admin, thank god, fuming. But what, dare say, is the freaking cat doing out in the first place?. Cats are meant to be inside 24/7, because they are responsible for killing millions of birds and small marsupials every year. But the cat owners do not believe it is thier precious feline that could do such a thing. How cruel to keep a cat inside, they say, neverminding the cruelty of increasingly threatened feathered things dropped on door steps. Idiots.

My sister and I rant for a while about how Torquay is too overcrowded now, and how the traffic is insane, and how you can't get a spot at a cafe for lunch. But we agree on one thing: it's about our attitude. If we reframe it as happiness for other people's joy, perhaps we'll feel better. Less resentful: 'how happy everyone is at the market having a wonderful day! How nice they're on holidays! How lovely they're out enjoying the sunshine!'.

But I'm not convinced - resentment wins out. The folk who, post covid, migrated from the city to turn this small piece of coastal heaven into a metropolis can get fucked. They're also the developers, bringing in chain restaurants and housing estates and high rises which are knocked back again and again but one day won't be. They're also the people who have moved here because of the beauty of the area but want the services too, the pools and the medical centres and the shopping malls. They're the ones whose teenage kids go breaking into houses, the ones who have Air BNBS here for the extra income at the expense of locals who can't find a house to rent, who push up the prices of real estate so people who were born here and whose families were from here can't afford to buy here.

The only thing that energizes me in these intolerable summers is the pre dawn. There's a time between first light and sun up that's gloriously quiet. It's the new sunrise - just before the sunrise comes in it's obvious show of gold and purple and tangerine. It can last for almost an hour, sometimes. In that time there's hardly anyone at all on the beach, save a few that like me, are looking for the inbetween spaces that are quiet and gentle and soft.

And throw in a dip in the ocean, cool and mothering, salty and embracing, and I almost become human again, ready to deal with the 75 percent of the world who are idiots, descending on my coast.

This post was written in response to @galenkp's Weekend Experiences challenge which is posted every Friday to give us Hivers something to rant write about.