Heat and Beach (again)We woke to another hot day in Adelaide and were at the beach by 10am. We went to Brighton where a sea breeze made the day seem cooler. At night, as the temperature falls, wind rushes up the gully, rattling doors in the dark and rustling in the gums trees around the house but the wind mainly affects the Adelaide Hills so we don't know what conditions are like at the beach . With temperatures in the mid-thirties (90 degrees) today, I was still not too keen on swimming but Frost lured me in and even Wren splashed in the tiny waves.
We did collect many neotrigonias at the tide-line. These are bivalves are from a family of ancient shells and are normally only found in deep water. Due to dredging they are sometimes washed up on the shore at Brighton. These are pictures from yesterday at Henley Beach - we arrived at 7.30am - dawn!
(above) At Henley Beach yesterday, rather early.
Shark Patrol
As we waded out on the shallow sandbank far from shore, Frost remarked about how far out we were. Mum has rather ruined my enjoyment of the long shallows by pointing out a helicopter flying up and down the coast. This is the shark patrol. It flies over the swimming beaches looking for great white, white pointer sharks which are seen from time to time and like to eat people disguised as seal.
Wren needs the stingoes
While wandering through the seeweed on the beach Wren cried out that he had an owie and needed a bandaid. I couldn't see anything on his foot but he continued to cry until i noticed a white welt and a spreading red rash on the upper surface of his foot. I think he was stung by something, perhaps a blue-bottle. It is a bit of a joke that everything is poisonous in Australia but I have no idea what actually stung him. Thankfully, Mum had some stingoes (equivalent) in her bag and it seemed to reduce his discomfit pretty quickly.
For the rest of the morning Frost was asking me questions about blue-bottles and jelly fish and what they looked like. He has developed a similar concern about snakes, sharing his reassuring hypothesis that "snakes don't look like sticks and they are noisy and would go HISSSSS and move so I would see them."
No. I said. They are still, small, look a bit like sticks and do not hiss at you before you step on them.
Of course, here I am putting the same rather irrational dread in his heart that I hold against a South African park ranger who made me believe that there were venomous snakes falling from the trees in the local parkland.
The Outside Shower
After the beach I had an outside shower in the little courtyard formed by a passionfruit twined fence and the corner of the house. While I showered I imagined I was a celebrity being stalked by paparazzi from the sparse eucalypt scrub on the hillside opposite. Where would they hide? Would I appear as a boobie shot in a tabloid?
Just at that moment I was startled by a large shadow passing by the fence. Papparazi!!! No, a cow. My admirer added to the ambience but not my celebrity.
Frost also loves the outside shower which has a very wide rain-nozzle so that Frost and I can shower together without undue competition for moisture.
Sneezes
I think Wren may have a tiny cold. This would excuse him for his awful sleep last night - trying to wake for the day at 3.45am and calling "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" and "get up" for a long while. Here is Wren riding his favorite toy - a digger borrowed from the local toy library.
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