Twelve Loads of Dirty Laundry
The holiday is over and we're home after two weeks of camping at the beach where the biggest decision we faced was to eat (the baker came in his van every morning) or sleep or sail or surf or cycle or canoe or read. I did all of those things and as hoped, I read a lot of books. Joanna Trollope's Daughters In-Laws, Geraldine Brooks's Nine Parts of Desire (still going with that) Victoria Dahl's Bad Boys Do, Shannon Stacey's Undeniably Yours, At Home with the Templetons by Monica McInernay, Nicole Marsh's Busted in Bollywood and for a change fr0m the contemporary jag, the new historical romance by Cecilia Grant, A Lady Awakened. It was wonderful to be able to do all that reading because during term time it just doesn't happen.
The Lad now has a yacht and after a few hiccoughs we worked out all the rigging and that's him out on his Laser. It's a lot faster than the tub he sails in at school so he even got to do a dry roll.
We had a 20km bike ride to a book shop followed by a delicious afternoon tea where I felt I deserved a slice of white chocolate sponge. DH did a lot of bike riding, heading out on his road bike each morning along with many other lycra-clad middle aged men who are keeping fit and pretending they're Cadel Evans
We cheated one super hot day and went to the movies and enjoyed air-conditioning and 'The Muppet Movie.' DH and Boy Wonder even did the long schlep into Melbourne because the Australian Open was on and they love the tennis.
Boy Wonder loved his new wet suit and spent a lot of time surfing. Me? I swear I will never get back the 100 minutes spread over ten days that I lost trying to get OUT of my wet-suit. Man, they grip you like a straitjacket but without one I would never get into the southern ocean even in the heat of January.
The river was full of bird life after a wet year and we canoed out to get up close and personal with pelicans, ibis, egrets, ducks, cormorants and black swans… not so close to the swans as they're not so friendly. The boys even got patriotic on Australia Day and did some sand art.
It was a great rest as it is every year and one of the reasons it's a rest is because I refuse to do any laundry. Why spend my holiday in a laundromat, right? So today I did 12 loads and thank goodness for a hot , sunny and windy day. I have the boys sorting it all now:-)
DH returns to work in the morning, the boys are back to school on Thursday and I've got a February deadline. Looks like the annual summer beach holiday is over. Pity. I miss going to sleep to the sound of the ocean. Only 350 days until we're back…
