back at the screen

like returning to an old lover who is maybe not so good for you, but so delightfully distracting...like chocolate, like addiction...etc

We’ve been up at the beach house for the last week or so of the school hols, computer-free & only minimally online, emailing via the mobile phone. Haven’t missed the screen at all. But of course now we are reunited, me and the Mac - hours of catching up!

Old friends - a family of four with two teenaged girls - from Victoria stayed with us. R & S have been holidaying at the old house since long before their girls were born, since back when it was my mother’s place.

Our days were miraculously mild and sunny after a week of rain. We spent quite a bit of time lying around on the deck reading our books. The girls ran on the beach early every morning, and their Dad went surfing, with his big Malibu board over in the National Park each day before breakfast. He introduced F to surfing too, on a golden lit late afternoon at Ti Tree Bay.

L practised her viola, beautiful melancholy music. R played ukulele and sang ‘Dream A Little Dream Of Me’. We went for long walks, ate candlelit meals, watched the moon rise over the ocean. We played Scrabble, and cards, &  a manic game called ‘Ligretto’ that one of the girls got in Germany. Also Chinese Chequers and ‘Cheat’ and Charades. We  laughed a lot. We chatted about  parenting and Steiner Schools and books and travel and mutual friends and the terrifying state of the planet. Bought icecreams from Massimo’s. A sweet old-fashioned family holiday. 

Was it really that perfect? Will I mention my own personal internal existential toilings and moilings about various other things? Will I mention that I felt a little wobbley inside myself; and unable to entirely unplug from certain stressful things happening via email and phone... Nah, I won’t mention any of that. It was perfect. 

And we all felt sad this morning when it was time to say goodbye and head home. Back to school in a coupla days.