Spur of the Moment Beach Holiday

I'm going to tell you the part about our homecoming first. I'm doing this because our homecoming was disgusting and annoying, and whilst it is obviously a good story which relates to our trip away, I don't want it to be the final flavour of this piece.

So here is the disgusting and annoying end to our tale:

When we returned home from our spur-of-the-moment beach holiday, we walked into our house, which had been closed up and baked in the historic three-day 43+degree Melbourne heatwave. As expected the air was thick and hot, and although it was nasty to walk into, we were able to congratulate ourselves for having escaped actually living in it during the heatwave. But as I walked from room to room, throwing open the windows to encourage inside the mild cool change that blew around the outside of the house, my nostrils were assailed by a Very Bad Smell. Worse, it came from our bedroom. So I did the only sane and rational thing in I could do in that situation; I went outside to tell Fixit that I was pretty sure that Bertie Wooster had left a dead bird in our room.

My nose had not lied to me, and even Iron-guts Fixit struggled with the clean-up. He was heard to voice his intention to kick Bertie Wooster all the way back to Seymour. The maggotty remains of the bird were writhing under our bed and the smell was just vile. One day, two incense sticks, a vacuum and some bicarb soda later and the smell is still not nice. Thank goodness one of our new couches has a fold-out bed in it!

Now for the good stuff. We got to escape the foul Melbourne heatwave!!

Fixit's work stood him down unexpectedly this week, due to him having too many extra hours to his credit. So I made a quick phone call to my aunt and uncle, and they very kindly gave us the use of their beach-house. And although Barwon Heads and surrounds was suffering from exactly the same heatwave as poor old Melbourne, it didn't matter!!! Heatwaves at beaches are fun! Too hot? Let's go swimming! Or lounge around in the cool house watching tennis! Or eat takeaway food! Or have an ice-cream! (Climber lost a tooth into an ice-cream cone, but didn't swallow it, luckily.) See? Fun. And Easy.



My friend Jenny loaned us a beach shelter and some blow-up boogie boards, which were a smash hit. The water was completely refreshing and I swam as much as anyone, in Just Bathers, didn't need a Wussy Wetsuit! And we saw a Real Dolphin, an actual wild dolphin!!! A guy told me that the locals call it Archie and that it has been swimming into the river beach at Barwon Heads and frolicking round with the swimming people for the last few weeks.
And we saw it!
I was beside myself with excitement, it's one of my wishes come true to see a dolphin in its natural habitat. Sadly, I didn't have my camera ready because I was in the water at the time.

Cherub mostly floated serenely on the boogie-board, preferably with a parent pulling him around with the leadrope -like a little pasha- or played in the sand, but he practised his floating when I told him to.



Climber tried sushi (fussy eaters can come good, Climber is living proof!) and wave-catching. He swam freestyle in the river, jumped through waves in the surf, dug forts in the sand, or ran around the beach playing his own private and intense fantasy games. He is just lovely to take on holiday.



We made Fixit drive us to the nearby beach at Queenscliff to show him how ace it was. Twice. (River beaches are okay, but surf is much more fun!)



Best of all, poor tired, stressed, overworked Mister Fixit-McCrankypants gradually relaxed back into the Fixit we know and missed.