An independant outing

The family was going on a rollerskating dog walk the other morning (alright so only Lily was going to be rollerskating but it sounded impressive), and I thought I'd better not push it and feel awful for weeks so I stayed at home. After a while it was clear they were on a much longer mission than I'd anticipated, and I wished I could go and do something. Then I realised I was being stupid and of course I could. I've driven the van before, therefore I can drive the van! Where would I like to go? A beach! Shelly Beach, along from the Bower where Ruth and Zappa went snorkelling the other day and I watched. Yes. I quickly got my stuff and set off before I could talk myself out of it.
Me and SatNav jollied ourselves over to Shelly and startled ourselves by finding a park (parking space) in under 30 minutes, and I did my first parallel park in the van! First time and everything. Look I even took a photo:

Ok so it was about 2 miles from the curb but...I still parked. It was even legal.
I walked down and started walking towards the beach, to discover it was full of people and their children. I didn't fancy that so I chose a nice rock to sit on, which had a nicer view anyway.

I found rockpools and little crabs which all ran out of the way when I saw them.

I have discovered this sport the Australians have: Stand-up paddle boarding.

These guys are so funny, they paddle their boards along, very, very slowly, concentrating hard on making it look like they are totally unbothered by going anywhere, what anyone else is doing, or just anything. Super laid-back dudes. Eventually they find themselves (not that they meant to but they're not at all surprised either) near a little break making little waves. They made sure they didn't paddle in a straight line there, they meandered about making sure you didn't think they got their on purpose. They slowly paddle about, looking unconcernedly at the little waves, for a while, then after a while, find themselves gently carried along on one. They go with it. Then they go back to looking at them again for a while.

I'd seen one guy doing it the other day when Ruth and Zap went snorkelling, and he did give off a very cool air. But on this occasion there were several of them out there, and it somehow cancelled out the cool, because it looked like they did have a purpose, seeing as they were all in the same place doing the same thing, no matter how much they squiggled about on their long-winded way to get there.

Also I like coffee!! That is, I like coffee from this particular place beside the Bower. The other day when we were there, Ruth and Zap got coffees and I liked them, so today I got my own - they do decaf ones!

Ahhh so good. Apparently Australia does really good coffee because they have lots of Italians here. And just like the Italians do the best hot chocolate, turns out they also do the best coffee. They superfroth the milk and it tastes like it's made with double cream, but no, just lots of air. It is GORGEOUS.

So. On the way back to Dingo, with my new dress on (must show you it), and my luscious frothy coffee in hand, I felt pretty chuffed. I wanted to go out and have a nice time, so I just DID.