I went to the beach

Canberra has been crazy hot the last few days - high thirties every day - so I snuck myself off to the beach. I totally offered to take the boys but they would rather swelter with internet. Crazy kids. The coast was wonderful. Great waves, great weather and not nearly as busy as earlier in the month.



I spent hours in the water - the water temp is just wonderful at the moment. A bit fresh getting in but then delightful. I have always loved being in the sea - any water really but a surf beach is my favourite. I spend so much of my life heavy and overheated, and to be cool and weightless is like heaven. I love catching waves, even tiny waves, on my boogy board and bobbing around waiting for waves when there are none to catch. I think it's the same dopamine that makes me avoid poker machines and play much too much candy crush - an addictive personality. You wait for ages for a wave and then you get a really good one and it's fantastic so you keep going. And waiting. And then when you get a not so great one you keep going, because it's bound to get better .... there are worse things for addictive personalities to get hooked on.

Speaking of candy crush, after four years and 2938 levels I deleted the app on New Year's Day. All the freebies I'd built up, all those levels, gone forever. Of course I haven't missed it one bit, what a pointless time suck. I absolutely shudder to think how much time it has taken me to get through nearly three thousand levels, especially given I refused to spend any money on it, so it is just time. Crazy.



Our beach had a massive seaweed tide while I was down. This is way more than I've ever seen there before, and it was a bit off putting to wade through in the shallows, but it stopped at the breakers. The weed just spent a couple of days coming in and out with the tides and presumably it will all wash out, or rot away, as some stage. Our neighbour says it happens every now and again.

One afternoon I went for a drive to hunt up future retirement properties .... still a long way off but it's nice to dream, and look at the little roads and isolated beaches we might end up near. This is Bingie Point, in the National Park, and it's very beautiful but not a friendly local beach. There was a big swell and some happy surfers but it looked way too dangerous for me and my little board.