Warning: contains contentment

KER-PLONK!

Don't you just love the sound of a heavy rock hitting water? So does Bumblebee.

After a couple of hectic weeks, we spent the long weekend at our favorite spot, Depot Beach, on the far south coast of NSW. It's where we got married, less than a year ago (I say 'we' advisedly; we gave Bumblebee such a good role in the process that he thinks the wedding joined us all as a family rather than BB and I as a couple, and he always says 'this is where we got married'. Fair enough too).

It was my birthday on the weekend, and this was my birthday treat. I swam every day (gasping and screeching at the coldness of the water), we ate good food, went for long walks, and lots of holes were dug and sandcastles made. I would have a quick (!) dip, and lie in the sun with my book, while they did far more energetic things.

I must say, strange as it sounds, that sitting on a beach in the sun is an excellent place to read Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, because it is a curiously life-affirming book.

We also managed, on Sunday night, to purloin a fire tub and some wood to have a campfire, which made the weekend just perfect. We sat around the fire drinking wine (and juice) and toasting marshmallows, reading the latest Harry Potter aloud while the rest of the campsite exploded with cries of 'GO TIGERS!!', 'UP THE TIGERS!!!' and 'TIIIIGGGGGEEEERRRRRRSSSSSS....'. Not being sport fans, we found this very irritating, especially since it was accompanied by blaring commentaries from sundry radios. Ah well. I don't even know who the other team were, everyone at Depot seems to 'go the Tigers'.

When we got back home and unpacked the cats were miffed, having been left with a household of visiting aunties who doted upon them but weren't us. Poor loveys, how they must have suffered, having so many laps to sit on and hands to be stroked by. So we thought we'd show them what an empty house really felt like and went to see Howl's Moving Castle for a few hours. If you only take your kids to one movie these holidays, make it this one. I wish there were more around like it. I was given some birthday money, and I've just spent it it one hit, ordering Diana Wynne Jones books over the internet, on the strength of the movie, and fuschia's recommendation.

When we got back again, happy and glowing from a weekend of sun, sea and a fabulous imaginative movie, the cats were much happier to see us.