Back to the Beach

Sometime in 2005, I ventured off to the great state of South Australia to join the Adelaide crew for Easter buffoonery on the beach. I played Trivial Pursuit (South Australia edition - a game at which I truly excelled), watched a bizarre U.S. film called "The Wanderers", and came within inches of spewing all over the SS Minnow on a fishing expedition at a quiet coastal spot called Death from Below Bay (or something like that).

Easter 2006, we, uh, hell I don't know. My blog is barren as is my Outlook calendar. Oh well, obviously we didn't do much. . .

But Easter '07, it was back to SA, different beach (Aldinga), same crew (well, not really, Uta was there this time along with our kid, and various other folks came and went, but I was there and that's all that matters, right).

All manner of beach-side buffoonery was pursued - beach cricket, walks on the beach, fishing from the beach, running on the beach, lying on the beach, and so on. Trivial Pursuit was replaced by Jenga, and although much was made of my allegedly shaky hands, I opened up the schoolhouse to allow my competitors to learn a thing or two. Just like the good old days of our youth, we busted the place up a bit. A bottle was broken within minutes of our arrival, and a number of other glasses met their maker on the hardwood floors. But with the ladies vacuuming the floor 8 to 10 times per day, the place remained immaculate.

And of course, we found time for cultural pursuits. The ladies took-up a short study of language, whereupon we discovered that Uta's name, when translated into English, means "Cindy". I suppose that explains some things. They also got their intellect on by attempting to power their way through a pirated copy of Babel - one which lacked sub-titles. They got about half-way through before they gave up. And apparently without translation, the movie can be completely misinterpreted, as they walked away convinced it was a documentary about the international child sex trade.

Ryan took the award for most productive house member, slaving through the weekend to write an essay on post-war urban planning in Australia. He also took the award for the greatest contribution to the region's biodiversity as he diligently fed the fish off Cape Jervis during Sunday's fishing outing. But this award was promptly revoked once his heaving off the starboard side was determined to be a clever ruse to attract more fish, ultimately contributing to our efforts to deplete the region's snapper stocks. Herbie walked away with the prize catch. Despite hooking my fair share, I couldn't land anything of legal size (so I had to remain satisfied with clubbing the odd baby seal). During our expedition, we also had a crash course on what to do when you're in an overloaded fishing boat in open water, the bilge pump doesn't work and you can't get the engine started. Answer: keep trying until the bloody thing starts.

All in all, another successful escapade. Granted, these days every one's going to sleep and rising earlier and the alcohol consumption is falling off. But on the other hand, the quality of cooking is rising, and what could be more important than that?

My only concern is about the quality of care our kid's receiving. Kerry and Mike tried to convince us that Ava's wounds were the result of mosquito bites, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions from the evidence. Any more of this nonsense, and we'll have to bring her back to Melbourne.