Bliss

I saw out October in fine style - Thursday and Friday by myself down at the beach! Have you ever heard of such luxury? On Monday I published a report at work (well, my office did, but I know who wrote the damn thing and it took a YEAR from start to finish) so I gave myself a little reward of two days of salt water and solitude.



The weather was absolutely glorious - hot and summery but not baking like February. I swam and walked and spread my stuff all over the dining table and ate processed cheese slices and turned the fans on high (no-one else likes that) and watched Escape to the Country. It was an awesome couple of days and very soothing just to not have to think about anything for a bit. Weekdays during term time has a very different vibe - just me and the oldies and the surfies and the hippies and a couple of mums with toddlers. I felt happy to be hanging with my peeps.

I made it back to get the boys on Friday afternoon and buy some sweets for the trick and treaters. There were a few groups - I refuse to get involved but if the boys are happy to answer the door and compliment people's costumes then it would be churlish not to allow them to participate. It can be something for them to rebel against - they can tell their kids how their mum never let them do halloween because she thought it was stupid so that's why daddy goes a bit crazy every year with spiderwebs and chocolate bars. (And then their kids will say "Grandma! She's awesome! You were so lucky to have her as a mum" ... maybe. Maybe not.) 

Then back to reality today with two hours behind the canteen / bbq at baseball. That's number one son trying to make the jelly snakes into a more appealing display, while my husband (in the green shirt) has a deep and meaningful conversation with one of the other dads over the sausages and bacon. Now they play home and away games there's usually only a couple of teams instead of the massed hordes at Narrabundah - it's much more relaxed, even though they are taking it more seriously than in the lower grades. Not quite as seriously as my son's newly arrived American coach believes baseball should be taken... but he'll loosen up. They all do.