Louise is camping in paradise again

I am not one for camping but it sounds like Louise does it in style!

:o)

I wanna go to the beach!
Then again in Uk it would be a somewhat wet chilly place - lol

Sue

Look into the eyes - They hold the key!
http://www.bringmadeleinehome.com/img/maddy544x150Banner.jpg

Hi All

Well, I did survive paradise and can thoroughly endorse the experience!

The water was so intensely turquoise in the bay, the sky is so intensely blue and the sand on the beach is so intensely white. The fishing was good too. Every time I pull up a fish I am in awe of how beautiful they are, with their myriad of disguises and pretty colours, the way they are all such different works of art, the way they can dart about in the water by simply wriggling the right way, the texture of their scales, the wonder of their gills and how they work, the beauty of the way they are put together to be oh-so-streamlined and slippery, the way they don't drown when they swallow food. Mmmm, they are yummy too. Truly multi-purpose creatures that fill me with wonder for all living things.

The kingsize bed is truly the best piece of camping equipment we have, and a good way of using up spare single mattresses now our kids have grown up. I zip the two mattresses together with an old open-ended sleeping bag zip (half sewn on each mattress edge), then run a rope around the whole thing to keep the mattresses together. The mattresses sit on two overlapping sheets of weldmesh, and these are kept off the floor of the tent by being laid on 16-20 blocks of 4" x 2" treated pine blocks, chopped up from an old cubby which our kids used to death. Total cost, $38 for the weldmesh.

I also had the opportunity to do some people watching. Goodness me there is an enormous variety of body shapes and postures out there! Very few overweight women at the beach, but those who do are on the whole pretty comfortable with their body shapes and their bellies. I look at them with new eyes these days. I guess those who don't go to the beach in bathers/swimming togs may be not as comfortable about their bodies. The younger women seem to be a lot more comfortable with their bellies than I can remember being as a teenager. However, these young women are a lot less restrained in their behaviour than we were in the late 1960's, and appear to be a lot more comfortable in their bodies. They wear very little clothing as streetwear (in summer anyway!), so I guess they have grown up exposing their skin a lot more than we did at the same age. My sons (25 & 20) don't really mind but even they are a little uncomfortable about the amount of skin on show!

Sadly, I also observed a few women moving around the campsite tentatively, walking slowly, as if in pain. Recent surgery perhaps??

Cheers

Louise

Cheers

Louise

The good kind - that is.
And I thought I camped on the over-packed side !! Being such a creature of comfort.
I'm picturing your rig. Packed to the "gills". tee hee

I couldn't agree with you more on the wonder of Fish. and Birds 'n Bugs. Nature
fills me with awe. Oh so Often. Like frost ferns ! We are having below - Well below freezing
temp.s Other side of the planet You and I.

Welcome back ! I sometimes almost heard your voice when I read something. You are
an important grounding voice here. You're back and Kits back too !!! Woo HOO !
Happy day.
Zelda

your vacations always sound so awesome! I'd love to tag along one day.

as for us, we just got back from Miami Beach. we didn't do all that much, just hang out with my brother and his family and spend some time at the beach (a real experience with a crawling-everything-goes-in-the-mouth baby!). *I* wanted more than anything to get to the Everglades and see some alligators and mangroves but it just didn't work out. dh and I barely saw each other all week, we were so busy running after the kiddos, that we need a vacation now.
and my prolapse doesn't like to travel, between cramped airline seats, crappy hotel beds and not enough good food, I have some work to do getting back to baseline. but I've been doing this long enough to know that I will, so its just the price I'm paying for the trip. still worthwhile.

and man, you gals have been chatty. I don't think I can catch up on all those posts. but I will try, I missed you all : )

Missed you too G.mom! :)

and my husband's mother lives in Miami. I wish.......................well you know.

::::smacking my forehead::::::
forgot you were in florida
I'd absolutely would've loved to hook up with you.

It's about 6:30 or so in Australia on Monday - I think. Louise said she's about 17 hours ahead of us. So she's probably getting up - maybe not. It's Australia Day for her - like the 4th July for us here in U.S. It's a national holiday.

Just like to extend a happy wish for a splendid day for you and your family, Louise!

Blessings always!

Judy

They were 9 hours ahead?

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY

Sue

Look into the eyes - They hold the key...
http://www.bringmadeleinehome.com/img/maddy544x150Banner.jpg

Thanks for your good wishes, Sue and Judy.

We're a bit funny down here. Australia Day is really 26 January, which was Saturday. On the day there were lots of major fireworks shows, massive citizenship ceremonies for those who want to be Australian citizens, influential citizens get gongs, community barbecues are held all over Australia, where Australian food is celebrated with lots of beer and Australian wine. Today, 28 January is just the public holiday in lieu. However, there are two funny things about this public holiday thing.

The first is that if a gazetted public holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday it is followed by a national day off work the following Monday (go figure!). If it happens during the week, sometimes they cheat and change the date, and celebrate it the following Monday when the day off is more conveniently timed, except for Good Friday which is always a public holiday, and sometimes they just celebrate it on the day and have a day off the following Monday anyway, cos they can.

The second funny thing about Australia Day is that it commemorates 26 January 1788, the day the First Fleet (the first boats full of official Poms) invaded New South Wales and moved in. Captain Cook had already claimed it for England eighteen years earlier. There had been many explorers, some English who had visited it previously, but all had other agendas and kept going. NSW was the first English colony on the continent. The others were established later, and only became states of Australia when Australia was invented, (and its states proclaimed) on 1 January 1901 (ironically in Melbourne, capital of the colony of Victoria), and became the country we know as Australia with six major states and two major territories (plus some minor territories.) The national capital, Canberra is the capital of the very small (but they all know they are important) Australian Capital Territory. Canberra wasn't even invented until 1911, when it was gazetted and planted halfway between Sydney and Melbourne to keep the peace. We keep all our major public servants in Canberra. That way they don't annoy us so much.

So, we have a national day commemorating an event (18 years too late) in a country that did not even exist until 122 years later, on a date which is a day that celebrates an uninvited foreign invasion for one of the (now) states. And it didn't have a capital city until about twenty years after it was really invented anyway!

But do we let these minor inaccuracies get in the way of a big national mid-summer holiday party? No way! It was a good party.

Oh, by the way, the invasion and residential possession by England was done on the principal of Terra Nullius, ie there wasn't anybody else owning the land at the time. Finally, in a court case in 1993 the Australian Government recognised that the indigenous Australian people had owned the land after all. It has all been a bit messy, and remains so!

Cheers

Louise