Dec 25, 2014

Christmas Day Amongst the Heathens and the Lonely. And the Outdoor-Oriented.

Christmas Day started at a pretty reasonable time, owing to Eloise not being a morning person, though when she did arise there could be no doubt as to the order of things.

She was always going to be in for a disappointment, Santa-wise, since she refused to disclose the content of her letter to him - citing a pretty credible lapse in memory - which pretty much scuppered any chance of, you know, actual real people backstopping the mythical merry man you may have seen in famous department stores such as Myer and David Jones or who knows even British Home Stores, if that still exists.

So no livestock deliveries for Eloise, just a make-your-own lip balm kit. What was he thinking. He did rather better with Lyra, delivering a huge Peppa Pig.


See that fan there? That came out of the top-notch crackers we cracked. Lasted about ten minutes, that fan. Still, the jokes were as usual totally awesome. How do you make Lady Gaga cry? We'll leave that one hanging in the air.

After Skype-mediated present opening was undertaken and the beneath-the-tree modest pile of present denuded, and breakfast consumed, we headed out to Tamborine Mountain to swim in the waterholes on the cascades of Cedar Creek.

Needless to say we had minor navigational issues which were of course completely my fault, but after we left Cedar Creek (the village) and headed up to Cedar Creek (the section of Tamborine National Park) and Lyra fell asleep we found what we had hoped would be a deserted approach to the waterholes completely inaccessible due to all these damned people who had the temerity not to have relatives who would host them on Christmas Day in their houses to have a traditional Anglo-Saxon Christmas Feast which would last all day and involve lots of telly and sleeping in armchairs. Jeepers! Some of them didn't even look Christian. Still, nice day for a spot of outdoors.

Instead they had all gone to Tamborine Mountain to have barbecues! Which left us a bit scuppered really. So we drove up to the top of the mountain where, at a different section of the National Park, we lucked out with a parking space, Lyra woke up, and we went to a lookout to snack while we considered our options.

The Knoll, which we were at, was blissfully free of anything remotely Knoll-like, but blisslessly full of the rest of humanity, many of whom were frankly unnecessarily loud on such a sacred day as this, and some of whom were hogging the barbies. Nicole got bitten by a bull ant almost immediately, so we retired to the lookout to munch Doritos, whinge about sore feet, and plan a segue to Burleigh Heads, since swimming clearly was no longer on the Alain Menu.



However, luck or perhaps Yahweh was on our side and just as we were thinking about departing for the Fair Shores, a barbecue became vacant and so Eloise and I played frisbee while Nicole cooked and Lyra chased bush turkeys with Peppa. Oink Oink.

We pulled more crackers. What did the fish say when he swam into a wall?

And then we headed home, for more Skyping. Ho Ho Ho!

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