Fünfzig

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So, i’m 50.

Crikey.

No aches or pains. Three Beautiful girls. Stuff.
Some dreams fulfilled. Happy.

Raises bat… just.

A low key ‘Drift into 50′ birthday. I keep the boat at the dock for a few days. Friends camp in the backyard for a few days.

Drifting into 50 is my way of testing the water…

“Easy. Easy, Ahhh. That’s nice. Now its time to get out. Bugger, i’m stuck. Help.”

Zoe, aged 4, and I slept on the boat for a few nights.

Zoe was strangely casual about that. She has never slept on the boat on the water. In the driveway…, but not on the water.

Actually this was the first time she had ever been away from her Mum.

The first night was quite wild. 25 knots of wind.

The rigging was humming and whistling. The sun went down – as it does.

I rugged Zoe up well and truly Dadda Snug. Down below to play Snap and clean our teeth ready for bed.

Zoe has a über cosy bed up forward.

It is a crawl space that opens out into a tiny room. She dragged a herd of dinosaurs in there along with her torch, declared that “I dont want any books tonight, Dadda”, turned off the torch, and went to sleep.

I mean straight to sleep. Out like a light.

I couldn’t take it. It was a bit weird. Had she been bitten by a White Tail Spider???

So i woke her… yep, I know. Dumb Dadda.

She woke and told me, “I was asleep”, “You woke me!?”.
Then *phew* went back to sleep.

I went on deck and surveyed the Salty World. For some reason, that I don’t want to know about, the sea is it for me.

A Philosophical Birthday Beer then bed.

I love Zoe and Daisy so much, it hurts. How strange that two kooky little feisty creatures have come in to my life… although I am becoming aware that it is me that is dipping into their lives.
Hmmmm, Philosophical Beer.

We had breakfast at sunrise. Ouch. Philosophical Beer.

After snugging the boat back at the dock, we noodled home via a small forest where we played Dinosaur hide and seek. It never ends when you are Four.

Our good friends were staying in a tent in the backyard for the weekend of my birthday. I had declared that my 50th birthday would ramble over four days. Somehow, in the most beautifully sincere and sinister way, Beth agreed.

The actual day was spent at a kooky farm with Zoes’ kindergarten. The size of the signs warning that ‘Emus will Peck!’ were only matched by the size of the holes in the Emu fence. We had a coffee at The Merricks General Store. Site of our first prenancy test results celebrations… Good timing still, as Daisy slept in the car, outside the cafe window, as we slurped coffee and tea.

(Look Away – birthday swill below)

I scored some ace pressies. A new 4/3 Ripcurl Dawn Patrol wetsuit!! Boots, Tevas, a very bling Coffee Machine. Cases of wine.
I am blissed out by the loot… So shallow :)

On the last day of my ‘Drift into 50′, five of us went on a somewhat bent out of shape adventure to the remote and beautiful Sandy Point in Westernport Bay. Beth and Daisy stayed home as the gorgeous small Daisy Creature is too much of a live wire to enjoy being on a boat for a day.

It took years to sail there. The motor broke down so we were well and truly doing it 1890s style. Sails only.

I sailed close to a submarine to extract the maximum glee from the four year old Z.

She caught a Barracouta!

We had to tack into light winds all the way to the beach. Not getting there until 2pm. Rie steered nearly all the way. Which is no easy thing – steering a fickle trimaran into shifting flukey winds. She is a natural. They have inherited a boat that I am helping to trick up. Oh yes, they will be Loyal Converts to the Dark Ways of the Sea…

Sandy Point is remote. It has no road access.

The beach is pure and clean, no footprints.

Driftwood. Shells.

Soldier Crabs.

Dave stayed on the boat and landed five Flathead. He was in “Here, Fishy, Fishy” heaven. Being the fishing tragic that he is i could only be insanely and unreasonably happy for him!

The rest of us fossicked.

The trip home was all downwind. The Trimaran slid along ‘wing to wing’ and we took only an hour to get back. I cooked ‘boat flavoured’ Toad in a Hole for Jack and Z. We sailed right up to the dock.

It was fuzzy and warm to have good friends camping at our place and to have a very low key birthday. Daisy grinned all weekend. Bouncing from person to person. Squeezable. Impossibly cute with a bent sense of humour. Zoe put herself in another gear and laughed and raved her way through each day.

Thanks Beth. You are my partner in crime. My love.

I am feeling tired. I need a shave, a hair cut and a good sleep.

It’s late, i’m 50.

In Watermelon Sugar

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We carved up and ate our first Home Grown Watermelon. We have been patting and encouraging them for over 2 months now.

Each family member, in turn, went to the Watermelon Patch to have a little chat.

Daisy took Watermelon Growing seriously …when she wasn’t stomping through the patch to give one a hug.

When to harvest? The Watermelon Net has many suggestions, all mostly vague and folkloric.

“Tap the watermelon and listen for a hollow sound”
Which hollow sound would that be? They all sound hollow.

“The bottom will be yellow”
Yellow? Really? Actually yellow, or that creamy Lamarque kinda yellow? They have been a shade of yellow from the begining.

The best way to decide which one might be ripe…?

Let Zoe choose.

Eating our first Watermelon was a big BIG treat. Thankyou Watermelon.

Real work

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Ok. It has been a very long time since I have done any real GRUNT work.

Sure, boat building can be hard and somewhat exhausting.
Mostly it is tedious. Some sanding here. Measuring there.

However, the past few days I have been helping a friend widen his slipway. Concreting… 30 metres of boxing in mud… A day on the sledgehammer… 60 metres of reinforcing… 3 truck loads of concrete to spead out and float…

I’m sore. Very sore.

6.45am Sat morning. Cannons Creek. Foggy road to boatyard.
Fog

30 metres of pain
Slipway

Somers

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Our weeks revolve around Beths work and mine. I have Thursday and Saturday off.

However, since we are working for ourselves things can get a bit bent out of shape. That is why today, Wednesday, we got up and went to the beach.

We made it to Somers beach at 9am. It was going to be a 32C day. Somers beach has an old general store cafe (that has been gentrified..) at the top of the hill behind the beach. We hung out there for a bit, threw down some coffee and cake then headed down the steps, through the forest to the beach.

It was sublime. The beach sits inside Westernport Bay, about 4 km from the opening to Bass Strait. The water is crystal clear and clean. There were only a few poeple on the beach. Clean sand, fish in the water, no weed. Zoe grabbed the Boogie Board and ran in. Daisy bolted on in behind her.

Getting excited about a toady

Beat the heat.

We swam and hung out in the tent until lunch then noodled up to Balnarring. I sat in the car with a sleeping, doe eyed, Daisy whilst Beth and Zoe scoured the op shop. They delivered the paper and a coffee. Bliss. The op shop is part of and old church complex. Lots of park and pine forest.

Daisy woke and we simply hung at the back of the Op shop for a few hours. There were chairs set up and play things and a giant shady tree with lush grass. I bought a soccer net and a ball from the oppy.

The idea that we were hanging behind our favourite op shop thrilled us. For some it might be hanging at a winery, for some the city square. For us, a lush field beside a church and op shop, under a shady tree does it.

Shady Soccer

Ok, i’m painting a pretty picture but we had no idea the day was going to be such an easy drift from one lovely thing to another. It could well have been a cranky slog, carting around two tiny kids in the heat…

Snake Charming

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Ross, who, like me, is building a catamaran at Seahaven, stumbles into my shed and gasps,

“Ya gotta help me kill a snake!”.

This is the second time in a week he has said this. Seahaven is half swamp and half paddocks. Ideal for snakes, mossies, bird life, old bits of machinery and catamaran builders.

View from the farm gate. Note snake infested swamp…
Seahaven

Cranky the Crane. Very snakey
Cranky

The creek. More snakes
Cannons Creek

Back to the snake… Ross wants the snake killed. He is bothered by the idea that he will be working here alone and he will be… “bitten and die”.

An over reaction?

Well, I tell him yes. I give him some condescending platitudes about nature vis a vie the natural order of things and such…
I take some photos of ‘offending’ snake (A Brown Snake?) as it slithers under a boat and all is right with the world.

Snake Bite

Snake Attack

…all is right with the world until Ross, one day, gets bitten. They smell fear.

Note: Ross hasn’t been bitten…. yet

Possum Magic

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Today I added some final tweeks to a forward cabin on the boat. I sanded here. Moved the light over there… then, after I had been doing this for 20 minutes, I glanced up and found myself face to face with a Very Huge Possum.

Eeeeeeeeck!

Actuall position of glancing man
Sleepy Possum

I worked elsewhere for a while, but ‘The Problem of the Possum’ persisted.

Possum Magic

Lets face it. There was a chance he would do a big hairy

Possum Freak Out

(even though he actually just slept the whole time...)

Really, there was no escape for him except by squeezing past me.

Again, Eeeeeeeeeeck!

Hmmm, he had to go...

Out with the broom. Out with the possum.

All that wander are not lost.

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Just spent three days away from the Boat Build. Zoe and I went on a Grand Adventure to Phillip Island. We caught up with a dear friend of mine and his lovely partner and his two gorgeous and kind girls. I say ‘kind’ because they looked after the Newly Four Zoe beautifully. She was keen to have fun with them and they invited her into thier world. I rarely saw her. I only caught glimpses of her parachuting Dinosaus off the balcony and scampering into the bedroom.

SmithsBeach

We hung at a house in Smiths Beach. A snug lovely little village against the sea. The beach is small and shelves slowly between two jangly rock outcrops.

Cowes01

We dipped into the bay near Cowes, talked and ate awesome BBQ Morrocon chicken. Then in the late arvo went on a long slow walk along the coast.

This trip worked out well. Easy and warm. So nice to see my ‘ol pal and lovely partner.

The next day was spent hanging with both my lovelies whilst B worked. Z rode her bike to the park and back. I pushed the zesty, stawberry sunshine, that is Daisy, in the pram.

Ride01

and a short cut through the Supa Market…

Ride02

and back out on the street…

Back on the Trail

The bike gang has arrived…

The Park

We rambled around town for a few hours. I really like this little town. The end of the street frames a sparkling view of Westerport Bay. I bump into half a dozen people I know – all up for a chat. The kids park is awesome. There is a very groovy and friendly cafe in the main street and a good one on the bay. There are piers and boats and moments away are great clean swimming beaches. Bike paths, mangroves, forest – all within walking distance…!

Anyway… We trotted on down to the park by the bay and did laps of the stuff there. Across the park near the forest the Circus had set up a tent. A Really Big Tent. Z was nearly onto it. Not quite, but nearly. We could have gone… but nar, it was a nice day and were having fun as it was :) Some pals dropped by on a whim in the arvo…

slide chaos

Trampoline

and their dog…

Where's the ball?

The next and last of my three days away from endless drudgery was spent getting to know some new folks at a backyard BBQ. We met via my dependence on coffee. They own a local cafe. They cooked us half a cow at their kooky home and we obliged by drooling all over our plates and tossing a Coopers beer or NZ wine their way now and then.

They have two lovely kids. Small Z and even Smaller D were doted on and spoilt rotten. Daisy disappeared inside their house for ‘look see’. It was funny the first ten times she did it. We hung in the backyard and talked Butchery, Treachery and History. As you do.
An easy fun afternoon. Ok, i’m ready to join the wild bush horses and enter the Boat Building fray…

I really liked having these few days with my family.
I am aware that my Dadda Adventures with my girls are a fleeting tweek in life. I spend a lot my time staring at Z and D and B in complete wonder. I hope this doesnt freak them out… tee he.