The "Going to the Beach and Getting Wet" adventure

Ah yes, I have indeed done well for the start of the new year - we have been to the beach EVERY DAY so far!

I will tell you how it went down.

There I was, diverting myself quietly with the offerings of the New Year when my daughter demanded my attention.

Oh, sorry, there I was, mainlining my main drug Blog when my daughter asked if we could please go to the beach.

As the howling gales and lashing downpours had done their latest intermit, and therefore sunshine was beckoning - and as my daughter had been stuck indoors for nearly all of this year thus far - and as I did put something in the ether about being a better person this year, I folded.

I did not do a whole jack-knife, however - there was NO WAY I was venturing in to the water. I had felt the gales on my dry skin and I know how the feeling of your skin turning to ice can intensify that much more when you add the wet factor. I also have a little bit of a problem with showing my earthly vessel in a semi-naked state at a public location.

We cycled over and set up shop. 'Salina has no such body image issues (no matter how hard various friends and relatives attempt to give one to her) and she is a water nymph. Immediately she began her frolic, and I assumed sentry duty on the edge of the waves.

It was glorious, meditating on the ocean, the hordes of revellers, the boogie board phalanx bobbing over the waves, the smaller children in the foreground investigating treasures thrown up by the sea, the life-savers alternating deadpan serious for those venturing outside the flags and in-club jokes as they gathered in small groups and cracked each other up.

And the sentries - silently we stood as Easter Island statues, holding goggles and boards and towels, keeping our eyes keenly on our individual broods, scanning for that hidden danger that may force us to don our supermother garb.

I wrote poetry inside my head for half an hour, remembering the glee of allowing words to flow and create music, remembering the girl who used to fill her journals with these sketches of life, remembering the searching for little joys and unexpected delights just to build these layers of words and infuse the meanings into a dance.

Of course, nothing remains but the memory now. I had not thought to bring implements for poetry, and I am glad. Much like the first pikelets, the first few days of poetry flow can be rather doughy - but I am delighted that there was a bubble of two of inspiration come forth.

And throughout the daydreams was the tidal pull of my child, wanting me to watch, to hold her goggles, to see her catch a wave, to give her goggles. We sentries smiled the secret smiles and gave the nods of understanding to one another as another child came up from the ocean with their little finds and shrieks of triumph as they rode a wave in or were dumped.

A rainbow was truly a moment of kitsch overkill, but sometimes nature can be a bit too showy, hey? It was soon followed by an overture of brooding clouds and gusts anew from the freshening low, so our time was coming to a close.

Just as we left the beach the skies opened again. We got 90% soaked as we raced to the showers, but it was sunshine again as we emerged to cycle home.

Maybe I will take my togs today - or maybe a notebook and pencil - but if my daughter asks, I think I may again concede and spend another adventure with her - it was fun.