Back down the beach

It was a long weekend here so we headed off down the beach for a few days. Canberra has a strange public holiday called Family and Community Day (actually everyone calls it "F 'n' C Day" hahahaha) the Monday before the Australia-wide Labour Day - so two long weekends in a row. Not to be sneezed at, and we went down to get some sea air.

The weather was astonishingly good. No-one packed their swimmers because it is September and cold but we all went in one way or another. I did have a pair of togs down there and a wetsuit, so I was fine - I didn't enquire what number two son wore under his wetsuit, but he was happy - and number one son refused to admit he was going to swim until the point when he got up to his armpits in ocean.



Just lovely. We spent a boring couple of hours picking out a dishwasher - to be delivered next week - and several boring half hours coercing the children into doing the dishes by hand. But other than that the little house is still great. And the beach is still beautiful.



I am going to take down my spare sewing machine because the novelty of sitting around reading and playing computer games is slightly starting to wear off - I need something a bit more substantial to do. I don't know how I'll go having two sewing set ups - it might be disastrous - but honestly I have so much STUFF I think I can easily put two sewing rooms together without noticing anything missing. I was quite surprised at the cupboard full of clothes I already have down there without realising; it's not exactly the fashionable end of my wardrobe but perfect for the coast.



Strangely, the beach house has a pretty good zoo about ten minutes down the road. We've got season passes, which works really well - I get bored and tired after about an hour or so, so we can do the zoo in small bits. They have lions and tigers and snow leopards which I love, and gibbons and monkeys, plus the usual favourites like meerkats. And deer to feed, and zebras, and those tiny little pygmy marmosets that look like tree rats. And a baby giraffe ... so cute.



We came back to Canberra to a limping cat so my husband has taken her to the vet ... hopefully just a torn nail or something but she was very reluctant to put any weight on it, poor little thing. We felt like very bad pet owners ... although the rabbits are fine.