Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Christmas puddles and bubbles

December 25th in Coogee, the watery sunshine rising out into the Tasman Sea and a chance to get up early and soak up Christmas breakfast on the beach while the sun was out. It wasn’t there for long but the scene was decent enough for shorts and a dip of feet, along with a coffee and some biscuits and chocolate at eight in the morning.



With just a handful of presents opened, it was onto Bronte later in the day for a picnic lunch beside the water with hundreds of other people - strangers but friends, brought together in a communal melee of portable barbecues and picnic blankets, managing to maintain festive cheers as the darker clouds and spots of rain began to roll in. Enough time though for prawns and cheese and dips and sausage rolls and crisps and a few tokenistic salad bits accompanied by some bubbles and a beer. Sunday roast it aint. That came later in the evening, when it was all suitably dark and cosy, a great traditional roast dinner, only distorted by my Aussie twist of homemade pavlova for dessert (still featuring plenty of cream mind you).

Boxing day involved boxing and a day of really quite British dreariness. A day at the footy would not have been out of place. Instead, the cinema was the venue of choice, a rather silly Sherlock Holmes punctuated by leftovers and another good dose of coffee and cake at The Sweet Spot in Randwick. Laurence was in full swing at this point and continued into the next day as I paid a visit to the Central coast, eating fish and chips next to the beach where a man’s toe was nibbled by a shark the previous day. A far safer and comfortable watery experience is in a heated spa pool, useful for easing the aches of ping pong in the garage and the previous day’s boxing. Thanks to Jodie and her Dad for this welcome Christmas present.

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