Beach

Wednesday:

This morning's delicious breakfast was a little bit of bacon, plus cucumber, tomato and some grapes. I get sick of things very quickly (especially eggs) so I plan to rotate three breakfast ideas. Eggs, probably omelette, with lots of veges. Yoghurt with fruit and/or muesli. And a small serve of meat, like bacon or leftover chicken, with salad. I can vary what goes with each, but I have a core plan. I like to plan!

We went to the beach today. The plan was to go quite early so we wouldn't be there in the heat of the day but of course it didn't work out like that at all. We didn't get out of the house until nearly 11:00. Jasmine needed a new swimming cossie as she'd grown out of her old one. The one shop near us didn't have anything left in her size (it's still the middle of summer, people! keep things in stock for a bit longer please!) so we drove 30 mins to the beach, round and round to find parking, parked 11:45, walked to the street of shops a block behind the coast. As we got out of the car I realised I needed the bathroom pretty soon, I've been drinking a lot more these last few days. So we were looking for a public toilet as well as a cossie. We found a nice cossie but still no toilet. Back and forth we walked. An hour had now passed since it started getting uncomfortable! By the time we finally found a public bathroom I was literally in tears. Not fun. I felt so much better after. Drinking so much can be a danger when you are out and about.

The Thai restaurant we were really looking forward to revisiting wasn't open for lunch, so we went to a steakhouse by the beach.

I ate my healthy stuff and left a lot of food on my plate, but did eat half my curly fries. I love curly fries! Luckily Aiden's food came out a bit late so he ate half of my fries while he was waiting, otherwise I might not have been able to resist eating them all. The kids had ice cream for dessert but I didn't have any.

Finally, at 2:00, we went down onto the sand. Not exactly an early start! The weather was lovely, not too hot, and we had lots of sunscreen on. I didn't go in the water, except toe-deep, I sat or lay on my towel while the kids and Tim played in the water. The life guard kept announcing dangerous conditions (a rip that could drag you out to sea) so everyone had to stay in a narrow area of water with patrols on jet-skis checking everyone was ok and herding them back. Despite that it was a lovely afternoon.

A bit over an hour was enough. I felt a bit over-sunned, and have burned the backs of my calves and the tops of my feet. I had sunscreen on and even covered my feet in sand for protection but they are so lily-white they couldn't take it. When we got home Tim collapsed on the bed while I began the process of rehydrating myself. Water and tea and vegetable broth and some grapes. I've counted the exercise as an hour of walking, actually my phone says I took over 8000 steps. And some of that on soft sand!

I had my scheduled dinner and ended up quite a few calories over my budget due to those damn curly fries! Stronger next time.

My plan for NYE tomorrow is to eat healthy all day and have a little something extra in the evening at our family party. Not too much, I have no intention of undoing all this good work.

I had a really unexpected phone conversation this afternoon. You'll remember just a few days ago I showed a photo of my cousin David's land near my grandfather's house, I don't think I mentioned that he actually bought it from my grandfather who had a bit of land there. Poppa gave us all the option and David was the only one interested. The land was valued and paid a reasonable price for, as far as I was concerned, and I haven't had a moments concern or resentment over the transaction. The sale was a couple of years ago. Well today I spoke to another cousin Jamie, who I didn't see at Christmas as he lives further away now, and apparently he is very upset about it! He feels like David got a bargain, David's father manipulated Poppa, and the rest of us have been cheated. He was trying to get me to join him in some kind of protest about it but I wouldn't (and apparently no-one else he has spoken to is bothered about it either). It was really strange because I had no idea there was any tension at all. And I hate any kind of confrontation, so I didn't want to be part of his protest but hated having to say so clearly and firmly! Jamie and I grew up practically next door so were close as children but I've rarely seen him the last 15 years. My goodness, without my mum to pass on the family gossip I just have no idea what is going on. It's a bit sad because I would have said we all get along really well with no problems. Maybe I just didn't know about them!