Beach wedding

Sunday:

We spent the weekend at a beach wedding, with a lot of driving each way. Three and a half hours to Sydney, dropped the kids off with family, then another two and a half hours. The beach was beautiful and the weather perfect - at least I thought it was just the right temperature but the guests from sunny Queensland thought it was freezing! Depends what you are used to.

The bride was one of Tim's many cousins, I don't think I'd actually met her before. I didn't know a lot of people. Tim's father and a couple of aunts. Tim's brother was there, but as children weren't invited my sister-in-law just came to the beach ceremony with my niece and then they stayed at the beach while we went on to dinner.

You notice there are no photos of me. I did take some, but was deeply unhappy with them.

The reception was in a pavilion at a pretty farm. The grounds were lush and green with a partiere garden and roses. The food wasn't so great, but I kind of expect that at a wedding where the caterers are trying to feed so many people all at once. One unusual thing was that all the speeches were after the first course, so everyone got pretty hungry with the long wait before they got their main course and dessert. But the speeches were touching and funny.

We stayed at a hotel nearby and breakfasted near the water,

then headed back to Sydney. We'd left the kids with cousins who live a couple of blocks from the ocean, so they'd had a great time. We walked along the esplanade and had fish and chips at the beach (much more crowded than the isolated beach where the wedding was!)

then walked back.

It was a hot day, much hotter than yesterday, and I had sunscreen but no hat. By the end of all this time in the sun (including quite a few extra blocks to the car as there was no parking anywhere near where we wanted to go on such a lovely day) I was headachy and a bit nauseous. And sunburned on the side of my neck where I missed a bit with the sunscreen. The drive home seemed long and difficult and I was very glad to be home, but apart from possible mild sunstroke it was a lovely weekend away.

I can't wait until we're only 20 minutes away from the ocean!