Team Up Thursday: Sand

JoLyn and I have been at it again. It's Team Up Thursday and we've had a lot of fun putting together this diptych despite both of our protests of 'too much to do'!

Our process this week was a little more leisurely than last week's: 'aaauuugh...this is all I've got JoLyn can you do anything with it?' We tried a few ideas and the family vote was the eventual decider. My shot, on the left, is sea lion tracks in the sand on Kangaroo Island. JoLyn's......well, you''ll have to click over to her site to hear that story.

For more Team Up projects, check out Melody or Megan (or both) and feel free to join in!

Theme Thursday: Sunshine

A rushed Theme Thursday this week as I sit here in the freezing cold in front of the bar heater (eeek $$$$$$$) ! Sunshine is a dim memory at the moment although we are loving all the rain.
This sunshine was back in January on Noarlunga beach when my sister and her kids were here from the UK. That's Ginger, recently turned 10, and the Small Boy who, thinking back to the last weekend, appears to have grown significantly in the last 5 months!

Boogie boarding is a wonderful pastime on the beach in summer: it's not as difficult as surfing, nor does it take you out to the dangerous shark infested deep waters (;-) you think I'm joking don't you?) but it offers a sense of satisfaction and a minor thrill as the near shore waves carry you onto the sand. I think the faces tell the story.

So I'll get back to work and the bitter chill of an Adelaide winter, while you go on over to Cheese Party and see what sunshine is warming up the other hemisphere!

Theme Thursday: Relaxation.

All you have to do on holiday in Kangaroo Island is 'relax'. This was taken in January this year when my sister and her children were here. We were on an outing to Emu Bay; when we arrived we doubled the number of people on the beach.

Are you in the mood for 'Relaxation'? Slide on over to 'Cheese Party' and check out Theme Thursday.

SOOC Sunday: Bondi Beach

Melody does this little thing called Straight Out Of Camera Saturday (or Sunday) and as I'm about to load up a plethora of shots from my Sydney trip, I thought I'd start with this one and send you over to look at other people's unprocessed photography at Slurping Life.

I have no idea who this is but he walked across my shot of the wind blowing the spray off the wave and turns out it is good that he did! I have any number of other shots of waves and they somehow never look as impressive as they do in real life. A bit of human interest helps :-)

I had a great time in Sydney, (thanks to the BA's Dad and Stepmum Extraordinaire) and we finished off with an ANZAC Day Saturday afternoon trip down to Bondi for coffee and cake. It really is a beautiful beach. The Baby Angel had never been there before and so we walked on the sand and sat and watched the multitude of surfers hovering like sharks around the left hand break.

It's Monday here now and I am putting off the hideous but inevitable return to work. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be teaching them today *sigh*. I have a free to work it out when I get there :-(

Hope you're all doing OK wherever you are.

Best Shot Monday: A Plethora of Outings III: Victor Harbour

I am not sure why I feel this is my Best Shot this week. It's taken from the top of a horse drawn tram, crossing The Causeway from Granite Island to Victor Harbour. I guess I like the composition with the causeway stretching off into the distance and the mainland laid out across the horizon. We were suffering from the rather overcast day, but I still kinda like it.


This was yet another of the numerous family outings we have been involved with lately. VictorHarbour is a seaside town on the south coast of SA which nestles a small island within the safety of its sweeping bay. The island has long been the habitat of a colony of Fairy Penguins (although I believe they are now called 'Little Penguins' rather than 'fairy' for fear of upsetting the gay community.... I don't think I've ever heard anything SO ridiculous)I managed to captured this baby waiting patiently for its parents to return with food.


The day started badly when Himself's car broke down halfway to the coast. It's about an hour drive and he had the good fortune to stop just outside a small town so I was able to drive back and pick up some oil. Apparently in this day and age your car will not allow you to cook the engine like it did in the old days; the onboard computer shuts everything down and you simply stop until you can remedy the problem. Thank goodnes it was so simple I hear you say.Yes, well. That would work very well if the human factor was not involved. Particularly the male, 'will not be told' human factor.

On my return I held the funnel whilst Himself added oil to the engine. After a litre or so he checked the dipstick and found that the oil was only just registering. Grumbling mightily he proceeded to pour with abandon.

Me: Er, don't you think you ought to check the levels before you put too much more in.
Himself: *grunt*
Me: No, really, just check it, it's easier to put more in than take it out...
Himself: It was barely even registering before, it's going to need all of this.
Me: But it wouldn't hurt to check, I mean, you don't want to overfill it...
Himself *annoyed grunt*
Me: resigned sigh

The car still didn't start but we attributed that to a need to 'reset' somehow and called the RAA.
I loaded the troops into my poor little car and we struggled off to Victor to meet the parent body who had arrived ahead of us. After the obligatory hot dogs, chips and souvenir hunt at the kiosk we walked The Causeway to the Island and proceeded to explore.
During this pleasant, if cold and windy (check out Small Boy in the above photo) venture I received several more calls from Himself, still nursing his stranded vehicle.

Call 1
Himself: Well, it started once the RAA guy got here and he just told me off for letting the oil get
so low!
Me: No comment. Are you on your way then?
Himself: Yes, I'll be with you shortly.

Call 2 (15 minutes later)
Himself: Uhhhhh, the car's starting to sound rough again and the oil light's back on. I'm going to
stop.
Me: OK. How come the oil light's on again? It must be the oil pump or something.
Himself: Errr no, it's just oil related.
Me: What do you mean 'oil related'?
Himself: Nevermind, I'm pulling over now. I'll call you in a minute.

Call 3 (30 minutes later....allowing me time to 'forget' our previous conversation perhaps?)
Himself: OK It's cooled down and I'm going again but I'm going to head back to Adelaide.
Me: That sounds like a good idea. I still don't get why the oil light is coming on....
Himself: Well it might be because I ^%&^%&^&^%&^%$#%@# .
Me: Sorry? You're breaking up....because you what???
Himself: (covering mouth with hand) ) I *(**&^*&&^$^%#%#ed it.....
Me: Did you say you OVERFILLED it???????????????????????????????

I have been a very good wife since then and not mentioned this once. Even though we have to wait until Weds to have it serviced cos the Jeep Service Centres are all booked up and even though we have to HIRE a second car to get us on our NEXT excursion!!!! I have only once said 'I told you so.' Unless this counts for twice. :-D


Nevertheless, Himself has had to pay for his crime by taking 3 hours to complete a 1 hour drive back to Adelaide and missing out on a lovely trip with the kids. Here is the lovely beast that pulls the historic tram.

Here's the gang enjoying the view.
(Dad, Dad! I know you have been here 1 000 000 times before with all your geology students but for heavens sake try to look interested.)
Here's how close we seemed to be to the edge.



And here's an alternate mode of transport available on the beach. See how Ginger is enjoying the proximity of the next camel!!!


For more photographic fun check out Best Shot Monday at Tracey's place.

A Plethora of Outings...well...two.

It has been a frantic week and I have been snap, snap, snapping away with the new camera, learning things as I go. Today for example, I discovered the macro setting! Would have been handy when taking yesterday's Theme Thursday shots >:-(.................

My brother-in-law, left lonely and FREE in the UK, has apparently logged on to this site and been disappointed by the absence of photos of his gang, so this post is for him.

Firstly, here is his little shell shocked family on day one, looking a little the worse for wear after their 24+ hour trip!

One of our first trips together was to Cleland Reserve where you can get up close and personal with the wildlife.Small Boy Jnr (they have the same name!!!) was captivated by the kangaroos.

This little chap is called a potoroo.

And here we have the gang patting a koala. What? What? You can't see the koala?It's right there on the right! So? I didn't think it was important enough to get into the shot.
Cut me some slack, I've seen em before!!!!!!! :-D

This little guy however, I couldn't resist!Here's one from at home. I was helping Small Boy Jnr to send an email to his dad. At 6 he is a remarkably good writer/speller so I was just encouraging him to use both hands on the keyboard. There's my new flatscreen monitor (Christmas present from Dad!) and my new 400GB+ external hard drive, to hold all my photos, in the backround up against the wall (thanks again Dad!!). The rest of the mess I have NO excuse for, except maybe that it's holidays.Our next outing was to Noarlunga beach with my favourite ex-pat Yank, A Free Man, and Boy Z.

That's my sister showing her bowling style, Small Boy Jnr as a rather laid back fielder on the left and Boy Z running away at silly-mid-on.
And now Boy Z gives Dad some bowling tips......Which he puts to good use.

Small Boy Jnr is impressed.

Meanwhile, The Small Boy introduced Ginger to boogie boarding. I don't know, I think she enjoyed it. What do you think?I couldn't resist this final shot, even though it isn't really for my brother-in-law. This is the Small Boy about to take a huge tumble; what we call being unceremoniously dumped!If you can click on this to enlarge it, check out his face!!

So that was the first two of our 'plethora of outings'. I'll have two more tomorrow with some incriminating video evidence of my sister and I!! Stay tuned also for the Arizaphale take on the hell that is a large family outing! It involves cafes, time frames, differing agendas and car breakdowns. Bet you can't wait :-)

Best Shot Monday: Cavorting on the Beach

The Baby Angel enjoying the last beautiful days of our Indian Summer on Good Friday. This is Brighton Beach where we walked on New Years Eve. And that is the extraordinary structure on the end which looks like a UFO from underneath!

My Mum once painted a sky like this when she was a girl in the UK. Her art teacher told her off. 'The sky is NEVER that blue," she chided.

Many years later when my mum arrived in Australia as a young bride with a one year old baby, she observed the sky and wished fervently that she could rub her old art teacher's face in it.

Tracey is looking at 'truthiness' over at Mother May I. Pop over and see some of the week's Best Shots.

All Of Us

No Chris, a day on the beach isn't really all THAT bad! :-)
Star of Greece Kiosk, Port Willunga SA. Timer shot. Came out pretty well I thought. Both the BA and I are exhibiting the characteristic red knees of sandcastle builders. We all had them!!

High Maintenance

What is it about families eh? Are they always high maintenance or is it just mine?

Exhibit a) Small Boy sulking over his sand castle.

We had a wonderful day on Carrickalinga Beach with SmokyJo and Big J, the BA, Small Boy and I. It was not quite as scorching as yesterday so temps on the beach were quite pleasant if a little windy.

We did the whole thing. Totem tennis, beach cricket, swimming and boogie boarding and finally, sandcastles. Don't ask me where it went wrong but somehow the SB decided he sucked at sandcastles and he wasn't helping me anymore but he was building his own and now he had the worst sandcastle on the beach and that just proved how badly he sucks........his powers of logic are convoluted to say the least.

He breaks my heart with his lack of self esteem. Everything is a competition and of course, when he is the youngest on the beach by anything up to 40 years he sets himself up for failure. Once he has failed he is clever enough to recognise empty praise when he hears it and can therefore not be comforted with platitudes. I have taken to saying "you're right...you do suck...happy now?" although I scarcely think this is helpful.

As if his fragile ego isn't enough I have the BA doing the whole "he's muscling in on MY auntie" thing! She has the good sense to know that her irritation is unwarranted and unhelpful but of course she can't help feeling what she feels.


Apart from the 'sandcastle sulk' which was brought to a head as we took pictures of the 'finished' products (left) and relieved by a sand throwing photo session (below), we had another incident involving my least favourite part of the beach experience, strong currents. And I don't mean dried fruit. (that would be an 'a')

The strong 'drawback' current known as a 'rip' here is the most dangerous aspect of swimming at sea....apart from the sharks.

The gang took off for the water with great enthusiasm and as I watched from the shore (I'm not a complete idiot...the temp was under 40C why get in the water?????) they seemed to be going a long way out. I kept calling for Small Boy on his boogie board to 'come back' and eventually Sis towed him onto an incoming wave and then finished up by towing him the best part of the way back into the shore. It was with much relief that I helped him catch a few inshore waves and then went back onto the beach when he'd had enough.

A good 5 minutes later the BA and Sis joined us and informed me that a rip had formed while they were out there and that they had had to swim quite hard to get back in.
"You were all worried about him," accused the BA,"but you didn't even watch to see if I got in safely!"

This was sort of true as I know the BA is a good swimmer and my Sis also swims 5km a week and has arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I had been fairly sure they knew what they were doing and was much more concerned about the Small Boy who lacks confidence in the water and especially the sea. I had been surprised that he'd gone so far out in the first place! I guess he just got carried along with the excitement of the group.

As it was I was very glad not to have known about the strong current until the girls got back in. I don't think they were in any immediate danger but it was a good lesson for the BA and gave her a sense of the strength of the sea and its changeability without seriously threatening her. I had a nasty experience on Bondi Beach once which has put me off going anywhere out of my depth in the sea without a life jacket.

Later that night, about 20 min after Small Boy had gone to bed, he appeared tearfully in the corridor and called for me. "I'm having bad thoughts," he whimpered, "I can't get to sleep." I didn't twig to begin with and asked whether the guests were making too much noise (we had people for dinner.....in a white wine sauce, delicious), whether he was worried he was missing out on something...then...in a blinding flash I asked whether he was thinking about having trouble getting back to the shore at the beach today........well the floodgates opened.

I hate the sea, I'm frightened of the sea, what if it happens again, I never want to go in the sea again............all this anxiety poured out. Put this against a background of an adored father who sails and loves the sea and you might get an inkling of why he was initially unwilling to disclose his fear and also, why he called for me. We ended up cuddling in his bed and I told him he didn't have to go back in the sea if he didn't want to. Look at me after all. I never go in above my waist :-) Finally, to help him get to sleep we gave his bad thoughts to Rawson the wonder rabbit, who threw them out the window with a great deal of puffing and panting. Then I listed all the nice things he could think about before, on request, getting daddy.

I suppose I could have been hurt after all my comforting and hard work (after all, I was missing out on the dinner party!) to have been thrown over for daddy but actually it felt pretty right. After all, daddy is real and I am just step and also, it was like he was ready to confide in daddy now without fear of 'letting him down' or seomthing. I don't know. It just felt right.

I gave daddy a brief run down of what had happened and the important direction not to force the issue of going back in the sea tonight. It seemed to go well as he was asleep 5 minutes later.

So, I ask again, are ALL families this high maintenance? Or is it just mine :-D Sometimes I'd like to move into a motel and leave them all to it but then again...............

Best Shot Monday: To The Beach

How about this for a beach house eh? 2 million Australian Dollars to build! I wonder what they live in during the week?

This weekend saw us down the coast a bit at Carrickalinga with our friends, The Dares. This is not their beach house, although theirs was very pleasant indeed, but we all lusted after it big time.

This one was taken from their balcony and shows how close to the lovely beach they are. I loved the bend in the road here. I was able to go for a walk each morning, which, added to my fantastic walk with the Bestie on Friday, means I have now walked for 4 days in a row!!! I must keep it up.

We headed on down there on Friday night, stopping at the historic Victory Hotel for a fantastic meal including Oysters Kilpatrick (my fave kind) and gourmet dim sims. After some convivial conversation and the promise of BOARD GAMES, we zoomed off for the final 20 min drive to the beach house. Imagine my surprise when we reached the house and the first thing to greet me was a cat! They bring their cat with them to the beach house and she had been patiently waiting in the car as we had relaxed at the hotel!!!!

Now the board games thing was a small victory and here is why. Himself doesn't play board games. Doesn't. Except Scrabble at a reeeeeally big push and Chess with Small Boy although this has dropped off recently. I, on the other hand, come from a family of inveterate board game players. As a child, every Christmas involved the introduction of a new board game to the family's repertoire. There was Cluedo, (Colonel Mustard in the Library with the poison) Battling Tops, Twister of course, Mastermind, Masterpiece....the list goes on. My Dad favoured the games which challenged the mind although he was very quick to commandeer 'Battling Tops' for the adults to play on those wonderful Boxing Day parties when friends came round.

Despite this seemingly endless stream of games, I was always jealous of the Bestie who had Mousetrap! She, being an only child, was always after a playing partner and in our
adult life we discovered many a game together including; Trivial Pursuit, Greed, Risk, Stop Press (one of my faves) and of course Pictionary.

Later, when I lived in the UK, my youngest sister took on the role of gamebringer and part of the Christmas routine involved the latest game she and her husband had purchased. Taboo, Balderdash and Pass the Bomb were some of these. We tend to favour word games nowadays I think. Whatever the game, my family is loud and enthusiastic. There is much shrieking with laughter and, where my father is concerned, cheating!!!! Himself has had no such family tradition.

Now if truth be told, I think it's just that he doesn't like losing. He doesn't get the fact that most of the fun is in the playing. It's all about the time your father draws a rabbit for Pictionary and leaves off the most obvious distinguishing features of a rabbit; ears and tail! Its about creating headlines in Stop Press which reference Bishops and Choirboys for every scenario. Its about making mistakes, being miles behind and good natured gloating. Chiefly it's about family and community. If you win...its a bonus.

So when Rachel announced that she had forgotten to bring her newest game but it was alright because they'd left Pictionary and Articulate up there, from last time....I was ecstatic. I was also sneakily jubilant because I knew He would find it difficult to say 'no' to his hosts :-D

Friday night we played Pictionary. Himself and I won. Saturday night we played Articulate. We won again!!! With a bit of luck, I may be able to get him to play board games in the future. I think we have broken the aversion. Of course, it may all come undone if someone beats us next time.

The other wonderful part about going away for the weekend is food. Saturday morning we didn't quite make breakfast but had a lovely brunch instead at a wild cafe in the neighboring town of Yankalilla. Lilla's Cafe is in an historic cottage with a lovely garden area containing the ivy draped ruins of the original chimney and fireplace, a corrugated iron life sized cow sculpture, many androgynous pottery fairies and a live donkey! The owner is a larger than life red head whose portrait has been painted by not one but two local artists for the Yankalilla Show's 'Yankibald Prize'. (taken from the prestigious Australian Archibald Prize). We feasted on foccacia with chicken and avocado, a steak stack topped with bacon and eggs benedict and other goodies. The display of cakes was superb but we resisted temptation.

On Saturday night we were treated to the southern American version of oysters. Rachel is from North Carolina and she was telling us about their tradition of 'Oyster Roasts' which involve steaming a bushel of oysters on an outdoor BBQ or fire in the freezing cold. In tribute to this we bought 2 dozen fresh Smokey Bay oysters and steamed them, indoors. We then sat in the warm dining room and shucked them, dipped them in garlic butter and ate them on crackers with Tabasco. Fantastic! The flavour and texture of natural oysters is retained without the nasty cold slimy sensation and, let's face it, everything tastes great when dipped in garlic butter in good company. It was a pity there were only 2 dozen!

We also went down to the beach at dusk on Saturday night and played boccie (spelt?) until it got too dim to see the jack. Wonderful.

So that was our lovely weekend. It was all topped off by the Grand Final on Sunday and, at the risk of eliciting more gloating from the Gawlerites, we shall say NO MORE about that!!!!







See what others have been snapping this weekend over at

Best Shot Monday

Summer. All the 'Moms' in the Northern Blogisphere are talking about it. Of course for us it's a memory and to find my 'Best Summer Shot' I had to trawl back though my files. I love this shot because it was early evening and we had just returned from the freezing cold UK to the joys of long days and 30C evenings before school went back. Baby Angel was now a seasoned 'boogie boarder' and poor old sun hat and sunscreen Mum sheltered, with her camera, on the shore under her sun umbrella while youth took a healthy bite of the ocean. The sad thing is that this is the childhood I dreamed about when I was a child. I was never confident in the waves. I hated water on my face, always burned really easily and was frightened of making a fool of myself in front of the other kids. I look on at her now in a cloud of pre-teen nostalgia for the way I wished I had been, even at the time. She's not even bothered by the oncoming wave.........well ok, it's only a little one !!!!!

For more (and mostly higher resolution) fantastic pix check out 'Best Shot Monday' on
Picture This.