"My Holiday" by Swellbelle

We have just returned from a week of camping at the beach. Four families, nine teenagers and the best coastline in the world. The views of the ocean from our camp ground was unbeatable.

The Lovely Husband and I had our campsite among the other families and our teens shared their own campsite with a number of their friends. The girls catered for themselves and the boys catered for themselves. The Lovely Husband and I enjoyed suiting ourselves with our menu and observed from a distance the interesting way in which the teens dealt with independence. The girls were organised and in control. They did come to us for the occasional piece of equipment or food item and in the end, money. The boys were more independent and only communicated when forced to by friendly adults. Their diet seemed to consist mainly of meat, meat, potato, meat, noodles, meat and pizza.

The caravan park has a curfew and the girls broke that on one occasion with lots of squeals, laughter and you know, that terrible thing, fun! But we adults stamped down on that kind of nonsense. The boys kept their campsite much the same way as my son keeps his room, like it was ravaged by a wounded bull. Unfortunately it attracted the brush turkeys and caused havoc so they too were set upon by the surrounding adults to clean up their act.

We adults had cocktail hour(s) with way too much snack food, we talked incessantly and drank plenty. On the other hand the nearest shop was a good 20-30 minute walk along the beach so unless we wanted to fire up a car we walked a lot. pSychotic sister was there as was Soul Sister and my real sister too.

The water temperature was fantastic and the surf was not too rough. The days were warm and the nights cool. Perfect camping weather.

The only problem with camping is that you come home with a sandy tent and equipment, 47kg of washing (you know I don't exaggerate) and for those of us with curly hair, near dreadlocks. But it is worth it. It is nice to get back into your own bed, and for those trips to the loo, it is just down the hall not the hill.

Beasties in the Bush

Leeches, aren't they great....perhaps not. Went camera crazy in the bush (discovered much later my lens was smeared so unfortunately a lot of the photos are rubbish) and when I felt that sensation of being kissed on the ankle I found this little chappie. Wow, gotta' get a photo says I. Your mad Mum, get it off. Adjusted settings on said camera and was bending down to get my David Attenborough moment when Oh, it's biting me! Teens (3 of them) think me crazier than a bull ant but I get my photo. Not quite David Attenborough and you can see my legs need trimming with a brush cutter but I got the little sucker off before he broke through the skin. Unlike the school friend who discovered two on her ankle as we were driving back to town. She bravely suffered them till we arrived at the supermarket car park and then the Lovely Husband and I left them to deal with it while we went and purchased supplies. Those leeches got a feed.

Mountain Beauty

Went bush on the weekend, well stayed in comfortable accommodation in town and travelled by car out to the bush. I love the mountains, I especially love the bush and the ruddy great rocks they have up there. My teens think me crazy, I hug trees and I caress interesting rocks. Big granite buggers, huge, hippopotamic and I have to touch them all. Didn't see any interesting mammals or birds because the two girls, my Dynamic Daughter and her school friend were talking and laughing the whole time. We didn't lose them, no chance. But the air was crisp and the clean and we had fun.

Bromeliads

These grow wild on our frangipani tree and, with all the rain we have had, are just beautiful. They are the kind of plant I like, no maintenance. Apparently the frogs like to live in the well of water in the centre of them.

The frangipani tree has not flowered that well this year, I think there has been too much rain. The leaf production has been healthy though.

Twitter? Maybe

I thought about my miraculous following on Twitter and decided on a little experiment. My cat and my greyhound now have a Twitter account and they have tweets. They are following about seven other Twitter accounts each and follow each other's Tweets. I am not sure of the terminology with regards to Twitter, I am relatively new to it after all.

Maybe it will teach me to condense my waffle because you are only allowed so many characters per Tweet. Maybe it won't because really, how much can a dog and cat actually say. Especially such lumps of unmoving animal flesh as these two. How long the novelty will last one can only guess. Have a look at Stripey Bum's Tweet or perhaps Brindle Ribs' is more to your liking. Neither will be very exciting I assure you.

http://twitter.com/StripeyBum

http://twitter.com/BrindleRibs

Twitter? Twit!

About 18 months ago I opened up a Twitter account just to try it out, see what the fuss was about. I entered one very boring tweet and I followed the tweets of Stephen Fry and a couple of others but decided it bored me. I didn't touch it again.

Just this week I received an email telling me I have a new follower. Follower? Of what? I went into my Twitter account to see what was happening. Holy crap I have THREE followers. THREE! What the hell are they following for God's sake? I have one, very old tweet that mentions me collecting the kids' from work. So what? In my worst Irish accent: "It is very peculiar indeed."

I still having nothing to say in Twitter. I am sure it is good for those interested but I will stick to my blog I think.

Be Water Wise...or Else!

For half a day we had the eight legged water inspector checking on our water usage, cleanliness and courage.

These huntsman spiders are our regular house guests. I remember when the children were small they were frightened of them, they can get quite large. So, to combat the fear I would name them. "Oh that one is Wally" I would say. It somehow made it not so scary but not being very consistent I slipped up one day and renamed a larger one "Wally" and was greeted with astonishment: "Wow, he grew really fast didn't he?" Oops.