Life is Beachy

C&G are indisposed for the next few weeks so a celebratory outing was in order. Interminable Tuesdays call for a little adventure and so we went to Bribie Island, allegedly a fifty minute drive away, although by the time we had stopped to get coffee, stopped to put Lyra back into her seat properly and fill up with petrol, it was more like an hour and a half, and the natives were getting restless.

Well actually that's the opposite of what they were, as G was asleep by the time we arrived at the legendary Lions Park, which we found was being renovated, and was therefore out of action.

We traversed the Island (do Bribie Islanders refer to Bribie Island as The Island?) to Bongaree and stopped off at the playground there, a favourite haunt of yesteryear when life wasn't quite so busy. It too had been renovated, and not necessarily for the better. Still, sleep came to an end and food was consumed and playground equipment utilised, after first making sure that it wasn't hot, as the helpful sign suggested we do.

After a while it felt like time to go to the beach, and having parked the car and unloaded all the food, togs, drinks, buckets, digging implements, etc etc, we headed up the fifty metre access path to the beach.

Lyra and Georgia were much more interested in living in the moment and with sand there, and buckets and spades, set about spading with enthusiasm despite our exhortations to move along to the real sand with the sea and everything.

Eventually we did get to the sea, set up, got changed, messed about with sand. Strangely on the beach it seemed to be my job to build sand towers and toddlers' job to kick them over instantly.

Lyra was strangely hesitant about gamboling in the waves, and insisted on experiencing things from shoulder height. She also seems to have lost her enthusiasm for hats, which is annoying.

A little wave hopping and soon one thing led to another and Lyra and I were wading out forcefully into the surf, Lyra swelling with laughter each time a crest came by. I was relieved (that's a euphemism) when Claire and Georgia braved the mouth-crinkling coolness of the ocean, and Lyra was becoming cold, so we went back to camp where a milk bottle soon had little Lyra snoozing on my tummy and me on my back watching clouds failing to form over Australia.

In Brisbane the weather was hot but by the sea, in the rippling shade under the edge of the forest, with the surf crashing gently ten metres away and the sand gently working its way into every available orifice, it was just nicely warm and life was pretty peachy. Although with Lyra laid out on my poor ribcage there was the slight distraction of my poor still-slightly-broken frame.

I'm not going to talk about toddler escapology on the return trip.