It’s nice to take a break every once in a while, and that’s exactly what we’ve done this weekend, abandoning the big city smog (that we don’t really appreciably live in) to go and show off Luc to my mother, who lives in the geriatric paradise of Port Macquarie. I’m going to suffer when she reads that — if I survive tonight’s pizza dinner, it means she hasn’t read it — yet.
The lovely metropolis of Port Macquarie, as seen from the beach opposite my mother’s house. Interesting caption writing is a skill. I never said it was a skill I possessed.
The proximity to beaches and parks in Port Macquarie also provides an opportunity for the kids to have some outdoor play, in this case at a local park (where Di met up with another cloth-nappy using Mum — it’s like a terry-towelling mafia, that lot) and, naturally enough, at the beach. Pictures shortly, but first an interlude at the local shopping centre…
We wandered through Big W — thankfully, entirely Delta Goodrem free — and picked up a few odds and sods, before running into some goths. Well, I say goths, but there was one crucial, nay, vital element missing — namely anything remotely goth-like. These were kids who were students of my mother’s, and they all apparently aspire to goth culture without understanding a damn thing about it.
Now, nobody who knows me would accuse me of having anything gothlike in my nature at all, but even I recognise a few key goth attributes. To quote from the not-always-reliable Wikipedia: “Common to all is a tendency towards a “dark” sound and outlook…”. Dark was not the word I’d use to describe these somewhat glowy (and almost tanned) individuals. Not so heavy on the cheery smiles and hearty greetings towards their school teachers, your average goth — or at least, not the ones that I’ve known. They do things differently in Port Macquarie, though, and we were effusively greeted in high-pitched tones by all of them. Weird.
It’s a bit dry in the backyard.
Hello Grandma. This is one of my hands.
And here’s the other one. I have two. So far.
Zoe enjoys exhausting all those around her.
The Goth Pelican contigent of Port Macquarie. Goth Pelican would make a great name for a band.
Boo!
Watching the sand frolics unfold.
Zoe tries to throw all the sand back into the sea, one fistful at a time.
The beach is covered with car tyre tracks. Amusingly, James stopped running for every one, carefully climbing through each track.
My mother starts to wonder if they’ll ever get tired. I’ll be sure to let her know if that ever happens.