17,111 km to belfast
Two months. I did say I'd think of something.
Lachie came over this arvo with homework. Year 5, "Where does your family come from?", a map and a bit of string. Des's side was easy, Wagga and then Wagga again. Then he asked about mine and I said Belfast, and he typed it into the laptop.
17,111 kilometres, door to door, as the crow flies. He showed me it's called the great-circle distance and it goes up over China, which I didn't know.
Then he asked how many lengths of the Bronte pool that is. The lap lanes are thirty metres. We did it on the back of an envelope.
570,367 lengths.
I do forty a morning, Wednesdays off. He worked it out on the calculator on Claire's phone. I'd get to Belfast at the age of a hundred and thirteen.
Then he asked who lives in Belfast. I said my sister. He didn't know I had one. Claire, in the kitchen, dried the same plate for quite a long time.
I'm going to start counting tomorrow.