Happy Birthday Merve!

This morning I woke up at 7:30 and could not get back to sleep, I decided to do something productive with my time… finish the dream catcher.  I spent little over an hour taking things off and adding things… finally it was done!  I’m sad to be giving up my feathers but I would have just been carrying them around with me my whole trip, might as well have made use of them while I’m here.

I had a quick shower, got dressed and fit into my jeans I thought would be too small now and then made myself some more toast for breakfast and sat down with Robin to eat it.  We have a plane to go down to the beach today so Rob can get chores done and I will give Kel a very long walk around the beach. 

He said we would leave at 10… then it was 11 and now it is 1.  I have been sitting on the couch journaling this whole time, I did clean the kitchen and get a few things done but Rob won’t give me any jobs.  All I can do is sit on the couch and do things on my laptop.  Sometimes I purposely let my screen go blank so old and new photos will come up.  I did browse through them all at one point, I just felt like revisiting all my Australian memories.

Now I play the waiting game for Sharon to get home for lunch or for Robin to finish doing whatever he is doing… something outside I think.

Finally Sharon arrived home for lunch!  The three of us ate wraps that Sharon had prepared earlier in the morning.  We caught up on what we had done so far today and then Robin and I were off to the beach.

I packed plates, bowls, forks, and knives into a pink container and loaded them into the back of the green truck.  My next job was to give Kel a walk on the beach, shouldn’t be too hard.

The two of us didn’t even get a quarter way before Kel bolted back to the house, I sprinted after her hoping a car wouldn’t hit her when she left my view.  I ran to the back of the house to find her sitting on the lawn watching Rob cut it.  Robin said I didn’t need to take her for a walk after that but I was determined, I grabbed her lead on trotted away.  I kept her lead on the whole time so she wouldn’t run away this time.  I collected cuttlefish bones while Kel smelled everything she could.  Kel fought me the whole walk and I finally gave up halfway through and turned around for home.  She practically dragged me back to find Robin but I had a handful of cuttlefish bones so I didn’t care.

A somewhat beautiful day at the beach.

Taking Kel for a walk...

Kel taking me for a walk.

I went for another walk after this to collect more things from the ocean.  My walk wasn’t long but I got many different colored seaweeds ranging from dark purple to neon pink and lime green.  I also collected a deadly jellyfish called Portuguese Man-O-War; it was half dried out which made it half safe for me to pick up.  I didn’t get stung or anything so there’s no need for anyone to worry, the best way to touch a jellyfish is on the top part of its body… that’s how I picked it up.

Back to the beach house I went to wash my new collectables that didn’t smell too well.  After washing I went to watch Rob install new blinds on the top floor, I fell asleep watching the ocean and its different movements.

Soon I was woken up and it was time to go back to our other house.  We reloaded up the car and I made sure my new treasures would be safe during the trek.

I didn’t have time to have a shower when I got home because we went straight to Merve and Janet’s house the moment Sharon got home.  To day is Merve’s birthday… not sure how old he is turning but when you get past the age of 50 you should just start counting down.

I stepped through the door and my feet were attacked with slobbery kisses that got right between my toes… they were warm wet kisses.  We sat down for dinner, Janet made a special Frittata for me and everyone else has to eat it too.  I had two servings of dinner… then Janet brought out a broken glass jelly mound.  There was a mound of whipping cream on the top and she served it with fruit salad.  You would think this would be the dessert but it wasn’t, in the fridge there awaited a double layer strawberry sponge cake with more whipped cream.  We waited some time before eating this; Merve and I went and sat on the couch because the movie Australia was on… I watched Australia in Australia; I can check that off my bucket list now.  Janet served me the sponge cake and this time I took my time eating it, I left the strawberry for last.

Robin and Sharon said it was time to go, just in time because I was starting to feel tired and the movie had just ended.

When we got home Sharon and I headed to the kitchen to start baking for Christmas.  We started out with cutting mangoes up, squishing passion fruit and blending it all up into a juice.  We added this to thawed ice cream and I got to vigorously stir it together.  The whole kitchen smelled like mango, if I were to smell like something for the rest of my life it would be the smell of that kitchen when we were making the mango.  After attempting to spread the melting ice cream up the sides of a bowl we started making pudding.  This pudding is made with flour and you surround it with boiling water once it is in a custard dish.

Our very messy kitchen.

Sharon the Chef!  She is making pudding in this photo.

After making some final touches on the first step of ice cream cake making I was ready for bed.  I had a late shower and fell into bed thinking of what I could do tomorrow to help.