On a whim I declared a family holiday last Friday afternoon. The forecast was for a fine, warm weekend and, when I picked the kids up from school, I told them we were all heading south to our favourite beach until Sunday afternoon. This announcement was greeted with much enthusiasm.
About 500 kilometres south of us is the small regional town of Albany. Some distance from the town lies a well-kept secret. It is called Little Beach and is only visited by those who are determined to stray well away from the beaten track in search of perfection. There are no nearby shops, caravan parks, change facilities or even a toilet, and the path down to the beach is not to be attempted in bare feet or stiletto heels. The view before you descend is truly breathtaking - a crescent-shaped bowl of pristine white sand with sapphire-blue water breaking in wave after perfect wave, and with rarely another human being in sight.
Now, our Winnebago is not top of the range and rarely gets an outing. This being very much a spur-of-the-moment decision, all I did was ensure the tyres were in good condition, fill the tanks and jerry cans with fuel, and stock the cupboards with healthy stuff like potato crisps, peanuts, chocolate treats and some bread and cheese. This was to be an excursion where I had no intention of cooking or dealing with dirty dishes. Indeed, as I told the kids, I had no intention of dealing with water problems either, so there would be no showers until our return.
Miss Eleven, who practically lives to shower and blow-dry her hair, was a bit disconcerted by this unusual hygiene edict but Mr Fifteen was thrilled. I don't know what it is with that boy. He has yet to discover girls and so feels it is sufficient to shower and change his underpants only when his family can stand the smell no longer! I occasionally have to go into Nazi-Dad mode and frog-march him to his bathroom and insist that he use water, soap, shampoo and deodorant. When he emerges, I give him my famous sniff test and then I check to ensure that the soap and the bathmat are indeed wet. Then I invade his bedroom, throw the windows open and search for hidden and hideously soiled socks and underwear. His older brother was nowhere near this bad but I did acquire some of my present-day techniques when he was at a similar age. Miss Eleven shares my hatred of caravan parks and toilet/shower blocks and, given that her hair would not be under close scrutiny on a remote beach, she grudgingly agreed that bathing in the ocean would suffice for a day or so.
Sleeping arrangements were as usual. The kids know I hate converting sofas and dining tables into beds - such a pain having to put everything back into order in the morning - so Miss Eleven was assigned the cushioned dinette area as a single bed and my son and I shared the double bed at the back. Over time, we have acknowledged our various flaws. Miss Eleven is a "traveller" when she is asleep. She roams the entire bed space available to her, occasionally pausing to rotate like some human oil drill and then moving on to rotate elsewhere. Neither my son nor I can handle this incessant wandering. Conversely, Mr Fifteen hardly moves at all when asleep. Possibly this is because he sleeps flat on his back with headphones on while listening to his i-pod. When you lie alongside, you can dimly hear the constant beats and booms he sleeps through, but it's not as disturbing as being clambered over by a restless, rotating girl. And then there's me. Okay, I snore occasionally, and I tend to talk a lot in my sleep, but you can't hear me if you're plugged into Good Charlotte or Eminem all night!
Anyway, we had a magical weekend. On Saturday and Sunday morning, we went into Albany in order to breakfast at McDonalds and grab some sandwiches and cool drink for lunch, and on Friday and Saturday evening we hungrily patronised a pizza outlet. Some may think that such a diet, combined with a suspension of normal hygiene rules, is an alarming example of poor parenting, but I believe an occasional bit of healthy neglect can be just as beneficial as any amount of healthy eating and lengthy hot showers. And we did at least take our toothbrushes!
We do not board-surf. In any case, the waves at Little Beach are not suitable for board-riding. What we all love to do is body-surf and Little Beach is perfect for this. When you stand on the sand and stare into the distance, you know that the next landfall to the south is Antarctica. The water temperature is always a shock to the system, but then, so tall and endless are the waves that you're drenched within seconds. There is no gradual acclimatisation. Take just a few steps into the sea and a wave breaks over you. And here we spent hour after hour on both Saturday and Sunday - swimming out to the waves until reaching that magical point where, head up and hands by your side, you catch the break and are propelled torpedo-like to the shore; and then, the frantic dash back out to sea to catch the next wave, and the next and the next. Exhilarating and invigorating. We frolicked like seals or porpoises and it was as if nothing and nowhere else on Earth existed or mattered - all we lived for was the next wave.
We slept like logs, especially on Saturday night, our bodies encrusted with salt and grains of sand and our skin aglow from pounding saltwater spray and the rays of the sun. We returned home on Sunday evening wearing the same board shorts and T-shirts we'd been wearing on Friday afternoon and then, of course, there was a stampede for the showers. Even my son felt compelled to shower. He may be oblivious to body odour but even he can't ignore the feel of sand in his most intimate nooks and crannies!
We sang all our usual silly songs and played all our usual car games all the way to Albany and back again. There is one song my kids love me to sing while we're driving. It is called "The Court of King Caractacus" and each successive line (repeated four times) is longer than the one before. The penultimate line is quite demanding of one's mind and lungpower. Without pausing for breath, one has to sing:
"If you want to take a picture of the fascinating witches who put the scintillating stitches in the britches of the boys who put the powder on the noses of the faces of the ladies of the court of King Caractacus ..."
then, a chance to breathe and:
"You're too late - because they've just passed by!"
I sense the kids are waiting for the day when Dad is either too frail to exercise the required breath control or else too senile to remember the words, but I'm doing okay so far and, when the time arrives, I'll have at least five children trained to take over.
School breaks up for two weeks holiday soon and we might visit Little Beach again, secure in the knowledge that it will be just as magical as it was the time before. In the interim, I guess I'll have to address long-standing problems with the Winnebago's shower and toilet. I'll think about it anyway. Unlike "The Winnebago Man", no hitch or glitch can bother me when Little Beach is just a few hours away and my kids are begging me to do "King Caractacus" again. Sometimes Dads rule!
About 500 kilometres south of us is the small regional town of Albany. Some distance from the town lies a well-kept secret. It is called Little Beach and is only visited by those who are determined to stray well away from the beaten track in search of perfection. There are no nearby shops, caravan parks, change facilities or even a toilet, and the path down to the beach is not to be attempted in bare feet or stiletto heels. The view before you descend is truly breathtaking - a crescent-shaped bowl of pristine white sand with sapphire-blue water breaking in wave after perfect wave, and with rarely another human being in sight.
Now, our Winnebago is not top of the range and rarely gets an outing. This being very much a spur-of-the-moment decision, all I did was ensure the tyres were in good condition, fill the tanks and jerry cans with fuel, and stock the cupboards with healthy stuff like potato crisps, peanuts, chocolate treats and some bread and cheese. This was to be an excursion where I had no intention of cooking or dealing with dirty dishes. Indeed, as I told the kids, I had no intention of dealing with water problems either, so there would be no showers until our return.
Miss Eleven, who practically lives to shower and blow-dry her hair, was a bit disconcerted by this unusual hygiene edict but Mr Fifteen was thrilled. I don't know what it is with that boy. He has yet to discover girls and so feels it is sufficient to shower and change his underpants only when his family can stand the smell no longer! I occasionally have to go into Nazi-Dad mode and frog-march him to his bathroom and insist that he use water, soap, shampoo and deodorant. When he emerges, I give him my famous sniff test and then I check to ensure that the soap and the bathmat are indeed wet. Then I invade his bedroom, throw the windows open and search for hidden and hideously soiled socks and underwear. His older brother was nowhere near this bad but I did acquire some of my present-day techniques when he was at a similar age. Miss Eleven shares my hatred of caravan parks and toilet/shower blocks and, given that her hair would not be under close scrutiny on a remote beach, she grudgingly agreed that bathing in the ocean would suffice for a day or so.
Sleeping arrangements were as usual. The kids know I hate converting sofas and dining tables into beds - such a pain having to put everything back into order in the morning - so Miss Eleven was assigned the cushioned dinette area as a single bed and my son and I shared the double bed at the back. Over time, we have acknowledged our various flaws. Miss Eleven is a "traveller" when she is asleep. She roams the entire bed space available to her, occasionally pausing to rotate like some human oil drill and then moving on to rotate elsewhere. Neither my son nor I can handle this incessant wandering. Conversely, Mr Fifteen hardly moves at all when asleep. Possibly this is because he sleeps flat on his back with headphones on while listening to his i-pod. When you lie alongside, you can dimly hear the constant beats and booms he sleeps through, but it's not as disturbing as being clambered over by a restless, rotating girl. And then there's me. Okay, I snore occasionally, and I tend to talk a lot in my sleep, but you can't hear me if you're plugged into Good Charlotte or Eminem all night!
Anyway, we had a magical weekend. On Saturday and Sunday morning, we went into Albany in order to breakfast at McDonalds and grab some sandwiches and cool drink for lunch, and on Friday and Saturday evening we hungrily patronised a pizza outlet. Some may think that such a diet, combined with a suspension of normal hygiene rules, is an alarming example of poor parenting, but I believe an occasional bit of healthy neglect can be just as beneficial as any amount of healthy eating and lengthy hot showers. And we did at least take our toothbrushes!
We do not board-surf. In any case, the waves at Little Beach are not suitable for board-riding. What we all love to do is body-surf and Little Beach is perfect for this. When you stand on the sand and stare into the distance, you know that the next landfall to the south is Antarctica. The water temperature is always a shock to the system, but then, so tall and endless are the waves that you're drenched within seconds. There is no gradual acclimatisation. Take just a few steps into the sea and a wave breaks over you. And here we spent hour after hour on both Saturday and Sunday - swimming out to the waves until reaching that magical point where, head up and hands by your side, you catch the break and are propelled torpedo-like to the shore; and then, the frantic dash back out to sea to catch the next wave, and the next and the next. Exhilarating and invigorating. We frolicked like seals or porpoises and it was as if nothing and nowhere else on Earth existed or mattered - all we lived for was the next wave.
We slept like logs, especially on Saturday night, our bodies encrusted with salt and grains of sand and our skin aglow from pounding saltwater spray and the rays of the sun. We returned home on Sunday evening wearing the same board shorts and T-shirts we'd been wearing on Friday afternoon and then, of course, there was a stampede for the showers. Even my son felt compelled to shower. He may be oblivious to body odour but even he can't ignore the feel of sand in his most intimate nooks and crannies!
We sang all our usual silly songs and played all our usual car games all the way to Albany and back again. There is one song my kids love me to sing while we're driving. It is called "The Court of King Caractacus" and each successive line (repeated four times) is longer than the one before. The penultimate line is quite demanding of one's mind and lungpower. Without pausing for breath, one has to sing:
"If you want to take a picture of the fascinating witches who put the scintillating stitches in the britches of the boys who put the powder on the noses of the faces of the ladies of the court of King Caractacus ..."
then, a chance to breathe and:
"You're too late - because they've just passed by!"
I sense the kids are waiting for the day when Dad is either too frail to exercise the required breath control or else too senile to remember the words, but I'm doing okay so far and, when the time arrives, I'll have at least five children trained to take over.
School breaks up for two weeks holiday soon and we might visit Little Beach again, secure in the knowledge that it will be just as magical as it was the time before. In the interim, I guess I'll have to address long-standing problems with the Winnebago's shower and toilet. I'll think about it anyway. Unlike "The Winnebago Man", no hitch or glitch can bother me when Little Beach is just a few hours away and my kids are begging me to do "King Caractacus" again. Sometimes Dads rule!
