Sand

Monday:

My weigh-in didn't go as badly as expected, 83.8kg (up 0.3 kg since last week), it was a kg higher than that only a couple of days ago. I ate a lot less yesterday despite being surrounded by junk, my body (and mouth ulcer) were just saying "no thanks!".

We planned to go to the beach today, the morning was gloomy and grey so we didn't leave home until it cleared up. By the time we got there it was lunchtime and after we had a nice lunch it was after 1:00pm, the hottest part of the day. Not great for pale skin. We only stayed on the beach for half an hour. The sun was very hot (I draped a towel over my legs again) but the water was freezing, Tim and I only got wet feet and even the kids didn't go far in. The whole lunch/beach experience was nice, half an hour on the sand was enough. It clouded over again anyway.

Aiden got buried in the sand and had to go into the ocean to rise off a bit.

When we got home he had a shower and left so much sand on the shower floor! I think I'll get him to vacuum the car too.

Tim's dad came over in the afternoon to play D&D with Tim and Aiden. It was a bit of a struggle to find anything to offer for afternoon tea, after visitors all long weekend!

Cronulla Sharks won the football final yesterday, I actually watched it (looking up the rules on my phone so I could follow it). Quite violent, lots of tackling - I grew up with my dad watching Aussie Rules which is essentially non-contact (it was invented for cricketers to keep fit in winter before all this international travel) and based on speed and graceful leaping into the air, this rugby league is men with no neck running until they are tackled to the ground and going off the field with dislocated elbows. No protective gear at all, not even helmets, lots of injuries. The captain of the winning team looked like his nose had been broken about 15 times. The Sharks are the local team for this area and it's the first time they have won the Grand Final ever so the beach suburb was covered in even more blue/white/black banners, flags and T-shirts than last week. There was even a whole car painted in the Shark theme with "We won!" Now that is commitment.

...lol just found out the other football, the one my dad followed, also had its Grand Final this weekend! It was so little reported here that I didn't realise. Just shows Sydney doesn't care about that code - even when the Sydney Swans are one of the teams in the final (they lost)!

Cronulla

Wednesday:

Lovely spring day so we went to Cronulla beach. There is some kind of football grand final on soon and the Cronulla Sharks are one of the teams in it, apparently, so there were flags and blue/white/black streamers everywhere. Although I grew up in Sydney, my father was from another state and followed a different football code so I've never even watched a... NRL? game. Still, go Sharks!

We had to park quite a long way from the nicest beaches (the closest one, Shelly Beach, lives up to its name and is a bit rough on the feet) so had a lovely 20 min walk along the shore until we got to the main beach. I didn't even put a toe in the water today, I sat on the sand and watched the kids who went right in up to their necks and body-surfed on little waves. The did come out a bit blue around the gills though, shivering. It is still only the first week of spring!

Even covered in sunscreen, I felt like my legs and feet started burning the moment I sat down so I draped a towel over myself straight away. I am pretty confident I didn't get burned for once, but I'll keep you posted. [later: sigh, I didn't get burned but Jas is a little pink on her upper back.]

After about 45 mins we walked a little further to our favourite lunch spot. The kids had burgers and I had chilli lime wings. Quite nice, but sweet rather than the spicy I was expecting.

Then a nice walk all the way back. There was a little beach down below the cliffs that we want to visit sometime, it looks like you have to clamber over rocks quite a long way to get to it. Next time. It even has shade! And only a handful of people. A secret beach. Ok, not secret, you can see it from the path above, but it looked very exclusive.

Jasmine took this last photo, she liked the framing of the trees.

We had to hurry home because another company was sending someone to give us a quote to remove the trees. I was not impressed with this one! He quoted three times as much as the cheapest company, and that was for "cash" ie so he doesn't have to tell the government and pay tax. So he was trying to cheat me and the government! We are very law-abiding people and would not be using his company even if his quote was reasonable. As Jasmine said "how are they going to pay for schools and roads if no one pays tax?"

I am getting none of my usual work done but I'm having a nice school holidays so far and so are the kids (I hope). Tomorrow we have scheduled a shopping trip for new clothes, the little blighters keep growing!