hide'n'seek

if you remember the pic of janu hiding behind a (very thin) tree in hide'n'seek, this is some serious improvement!

sand castle comp!

Scooping sand out of buckets, making castles as fast as janu can knock them down.  Channels, slips of sand dug out with a boat oar. It’s a sandcastle competition! I have never seen the beach so packed! 131 entries! Giant octopus rises out of the sand. My cousin james and his gorgeous 3 girls – micky, charlotte and zoe – turn up just in time. Aunt jenny, mum – it’s a big event! What adrenalin! Janu names the 9-legged octopus ‘Dinny’, and says that we didn’t win a prize because the judges ‘must have not seen ours properly!’. So lovely to see my cousin again.  On our last day I make him give me a board lesson.  Lurching on a long board, I manage to stand up once, for a couple of seconds! I liked crashing too. 

 

en famille

eleks, porters, kennys and the hound! 

salt

 Brooding sky, strong seagull wind. My footprints running along the beach followed a dog’s – running, lurching, playing, turning (I plod on, trying to get fit!).  I see no one on the whole stretch of shark bay.  Pirate Island looms up (AA and Janu have renamed Broulee Island, and I think it’s going to stick).  White yellow sky above mountains, under clouds.

family days

the beach on xmas day.

I did rough family trees of the Elek and Lyttle families, sitting on the porch. Trying to keep track of which of my mum’s cousins had stopped in for tea. A question could be thrown at uncle tom or aunt jenny as they wandered past.   Snippets of history.  Great aunt joan, painting on the shack wall every big fish that the family caught (we went and saw it later).  Those that died in the war. Great-aunts who never married.

ho ho ho

beware the...

...agapanthus my friend. The jaws that snatch, the claws that catch.  Also to be subsititued when singing 'hallelulah' in the car.  AAAAgapanthus, agapanthus, agapanthus!

santa!

 Janu had a great xmas. Woke to an excited smile, tiptoeing up the stairs together. Santa had come! He had eaten the bickies we’d left out, left some footprints (‘I wonder why he dropped the flour’, Janu said! about my sprinkle of ‘snow’ around a shoe.). look of delight pulling pressies out of his stocking.

We then tumbled into the surf for a swim, joined by my uncle and aunt, Tom & Jenny. Cold but perfect. Surf lifesavers gave J a lollipop. Written on their chalk board - Conditions: Perfect.

Games, pressies, snacks, books, paints, cherries from mum’s tree, raspberries from tom’s canes. Janu unwrapped: colourful plasticine, toy trains, books old & new, gardening tools, a water bottle… I got some buttons from the op shop! Adrian got 12 clinking bottles of local beer. One had gingerbread men crushed up somewhere in the mix, and was 13%.   

eve

Janu helps scatter oats for the reindeer, milk for santa. I consider confiding in him about santa. Decide not to.

mum and dad arrive - hurrah! 

 

build up

The build-up to xmas in Australia is so different to the UK.  It’s mid December, and you have to really look to find shop windows decked out. Scant lighting, only a handful of houses getting big bills for their neon trouble. It's light outside till 9pm, so the lights don't seem so sparkly, as they do in the mid-afternoon dark of europe.  

Adrian feels like xmas just sneaks up on you, no mulled wine or mince pies to warn you it’s coming.  And the santa’s that finally appear on the shop fronts stay up til mid-Jan! I point out that it’s peak holiday season, everyone takes off and forgets that Santa is still waving from the balconies. 

soph and I sit on my bed, cutting out paper snowflakes, paper angels all-in-a-row from old travel brouchures. of course it's the night before xmas!  They are strung across the room and corners of windows.  We stitch woollen stockings for maia and janu.  I made Janu’s the same size as I remember mine being…(?) 

candalagen creek

Blue reflected in the water. Corrugated ripples. Wind ruffling like tissue paper. Wag-tails twining around branches. Clicking birds up high.  Janu repeats almost everything either Adrian or I say. It’s almost like we’re not speaking to each other, and have asked him to relay everything. ‘tell your father that I’m going for a pee!’.   Sometimes I think he repeats the positive stuff, and shoves deep down inside anything negative. Uh oh. Is it so easy to tell the difference?

Scoop sand, grinding under fingernails.  Feel the sun land heavy on your back. Angle the red and white umbrella over Janu. Paddling down candalagen creek in a tiny inflatable boat – disappearing with Janu down the current. Adrian takes over, and disappears alone down the tidal flow, not to be seen for ages.

My favourite thing is treading water or standing out the back with the bodysurfers. It’s like we’re at a concert, except there is no band. Just eagle eyes watching the swell. Camaraderie. Tumbling white water. Timing.  Judging the leap, hard swim – lift-off! The waves takes you, body like a board, rocking over the white water. Alive! Mermaid! Strong. Breathless, foam, big lungs. Speed. Sand. Numb fingers from being in the water so long. All the way to the sand.  Huge kid smile on my face.  Hard not to laugh out loud at how glorious it is, sprawled on the sand, all the little kids wondering where you came from. 

days

Early music on josh’s tinny radio. Surf’s regular heartbeat. Bushes outside, one flowering red, one white. They look like valentines. Mum said that backpackers once died, eating kebabs strung onto the oleander twigs – I find this out only after janu and I have picked some poisonous flowers for the table.

Janu and griff playing together, as usual, like messy angels.  Everything is play. Clothes pegs are baby bats, hanging on the xmas tree. We collected bags of tumble-weed from the beach – grass seeds shaped like stars. We tossed them high on the tree. They stuck, blonde seed stars.

There are sticky handprints Maia height on the glass doors.