Back from the Beach.

Is anyone sick of seeing blog pictures of Australian families cavorting happily on the beach? I hope not, because here come ours!

We've just returned from a 3-day stay at my Aunt and Uncle's house, where we had a magnificent stay. That's the famous bridge from "Seachange" in the background. And somebody else's wonderful sandcastle in the foreground, which my kids had well and truly demolished by the time we left the beach that day.

The boys (all three of them) hunted assiduously for shells. We'll need to find a clever crafty way to use them, like sticking them on a photo-frame. Or we may just put them out in the cubby house and forget about them.

There was no question of me flaunting my legs because the weather was cold - I never made it into the water, and Cherub declined after one attempt. Climber and Fixit didn't seem to notice the temperature.

Cherub skipped happily along the sand, or climbed over rocks or chased seagulls shouting "bottoms" at them (a corruption of "muddumps" which for some reason is what the Climber shouts at birds. No-one knows why.)

Climber enjoyed running up and down the beach too.

My cousin took Fixit and Climber out in a canoe up-river. We inspected rockpools. Climber jumped over waves. We went to some local markets and bought jam and soap. We ate wonderfully well. We played some scrabble. We watched the cricket and wondered if New Zealand vs England might produce an exciting game instead of the one-sided matches that involved the Australian team. I even managed some computer-time where I checked out H&B's account of the Meeting In Real Life between members of what sounds like a low-rent rap group : House, Lazy and Stomper. (For the record, I don't think I can add to her excellent account of the evening beyond saying it was enormous fun and we'll probably do it again!)

The boys shared a mattress, but after the first night we put them both up the same end. This head-to-toe arrangement you see here was disastrous because in the middle of the night the Climber's long legs kicked all over little Cherub who then woke up crying heartily, insisting Climber sleep in our bed, which woke the Climber and made him cry noisily too. Took us over half an hour to stop the tears and get them back to sleep.

Every time we drove downhill the boys played Corolla-coaster. AAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhh....

I toyed with the idea of staying there longer, just me and the kids. But Cherub was proving difficult, because of what I suppose you'd call psychological constipation. The kid won't let it out and it was difficult to manage away from home.

We arrived back home at half-past nine on Sunday night, tired and happy.