Winter blues in Sydney with dreams of swimming in Fiji and the Dardanelles

If I were a rich woman with time on my hands I'd do a couple of the overseas ocean swims to break up the monotony of winter in an overcast, cold Sydney.

The website www.oceanswims.com promotes several fantastic looking excursions to faraway places, with adventurous swims included in the deal.

While I should be working, I've been dreaming about swimming in pristine conditions in the South Pacific. From August 25-27, the Beachcomber Island swims in Fiji offer a 19 km relay, a 2.7 km and 1 km swim. The prices seem hefty - it costs $175 to register for the 2.7 km swim. I think it's bumped up another 100 bucks if you want to add the relay. Maybe you get a nice lunch after? Dunno. But it's a lot.

After all this is over, and you are really rich with not a care in the world, you can hang around for the Yasawas SwimCruise from August 14-19 (see below).

Still in Fiji, from September 16-18 you can do the Mana Island swims and then stay until September 25 for another Yasawas SwimCruise. The Yasawas are a an "island chain"* and this trip is a non-competitive swimming holiday where lucky lucky participants do a different swim every day.

I AM GREEN WITH ENVY.  

Also on the ocean swims calendar is one swim I would like to attempt before I fall off this planet and into the arms of the cosmos. It's the Dardanelles swim on August 30, which happens to be Turkish National Day. Swimmers cross the 4.5 km stretch of sea from Eceabat on the European side of the Dardanelles to Canakkale on the Asian side. The water temperature is 27 degrees Celsius, but the conditions are unpredictable and last year's swim was a doozy - I don't think I would've made it.

Here's the link:

http://www.militaryhistorytours.com.au/site/Dardanelles_Swim_2011.asp

I have borrowed the pic of lucky chickens swimming in the Yasawas from the Ocean Swims website. I think you have to see how beautiful it is to understand why I am thumping my head on the keyboard in order to dull the pain of knowing I won't be in that pic this year. Maybe 2012 - the year of great possibilities for all!

*This is the Ocean Swims description, which reminds me of a sparkling emerald necklace.

Crying: when is the right time to shed a tear?

My youngest daughter Miss Hissy (aka The Hiss) is at a leadership camp. As if that isn't funny enough, The Hiss has sent two text messages from camp HQ that have caused much merriment in our household.

The first came after I asked her, via text message, how it was going. 

She wrote: Everyone here is so emotional but in a good way. 

In a good way? I immediately imagined a gathering of precocious teens locked into a group hug after each had made public some tragic aspect of their cossetted life.

My response: Emotional? Gawd! 

You may think I'm being harsh but let me put you in the picture. In our house there has to be a good reason for tears. For example: death of dog or other pet variety (though you're stretching it with gold fish and axolotls), broken bones (fingers and toes don't count, only important bones) and the final episode of MasterChef for 2011. 

My mother's advice was to stop crying over trivial matters. For example: acrimonious divorce, loss of job and frustration from dealing with ungrateful spouse and selfish children.

I'll admit there is stuff that makes me spontaneously cry like today in the supermarket when the man on the PA system told shoppers the grocery packers at each checkout were scouts raising money to get to the world jamboree in Sweden. That sense of community touched me and I got all teary. 

And there are certain songs that make me cry like U2's One Love, which was also playing in the supermarket today and probably caused me to toss into the shopping trolley items I wouldn't usually buy. 

This 'empathy for others' type of crying is acceptable. It's the 'woa is me' type of crying that gets my goat. 

For sure, I bawled my eyes out during my acrimonious divorce but I didn't bore the rest of the world with my venting. In fact, I did a lot of it while I was in the car and found that driving and crying works a treat for downloading excess 'woa is me' grief. 

Seriously, try it. In January, I drove in a highly-charged hormonal state from Sydney to Belmont and sobbed all the way from the start of the F3. By the time I arrived I felt great.

The Hiss's second text message was: Yeah, everyone is crying except me! 

My response: Ha ha, go girl!

I realise teenagers are over-emotional creatures and the world revolves around them. But it won't always. My point is if a child falls over and it's just a grazed knee there's no reason to cry. Get back up, check everything's OK and get on with it.

PS: I bet The Hiss was desperate to cry and probably did everything in her power (pinched herself, thought of dog dying) to eek a trace of moisture from those stubbornly dry eyes.  

A stiff breeze and a stiff drink

It's blowing a gale here in Cleveland, Queensland. Not Cleveland, Ohio.

I'll head out to Manly, Queensland (not Manly, Sydney), later today with fingers crossed that The Hiss has sailed into the record books and not into last place on the final day of the regatta.

There will be dire consequences for Spanner and me if she fails in her quest to dominate world sailing. I fear I will be forced to consume a bottle of red in order to numb the pain of her verbal abuse.

I haven't yet heard from Spanner, and that's not good. If The Hiss does well Spanner is more buoyant than a cork. Sadly, he lives vicariously through his children. In this case it is the second child as his first-born failed to embrace sailing, the only sport on the planet that Spanner cares about.

Geez, I'm freaking out. Why hasn't he called? She must be coming bloody last. Capsized on Moreton Bay. Screaming blue murder. This is a nightmare.

Worse still, we have left our home in Sydney and our dog (I LOVE MY DOG) in the care of my eldest daughter, Precious Princess. She's 20. Say no bloody more.

As 'Anonymous' wrote in the comment section of my last post, it is highly likely that my castle has been trashed by a horde of Gen-Ys with nothing at all on their minds. EMPTY VESSELS IN SEARCH OF FUN.

I sent a text message to PP on Sunday night. Here it is:

Me: 'How are you going?'
PP: 'Balls deep.'
Me: 'What?'
Me: 'Is it OK?'
PP: Sorry, that was Charlotte. Going good. Just having a movie night. Dog is happy in her basket.'
Me: 'If anything happens to dog I blame Charlotte.'
PP: 'She will not be left alone with dog.'
Me:'Dog will tell me everything.'

Realistically, the dog won't be telling me anything. How I wish she could talk.

Arrgghhh, another gust of wind. It's an ill wind that blows no good!

P.S. I've added another post to my writing blog. Click on the shaynesands link to read all about my experience in the Valerie Parv Award.

Sailing not swimming: Manly in Queensland not Sydney



Flying 11s, 29ers and Lasers at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron on Manly Harbour 

 When tourists come to Sydney they often visit Manly Beach, an enticing strip of golden sand that forms the backdrop for a surf beach world-renowned for its gnarly breaks. Up until recently, I'd never realised there was another Manly in Australia.

But here I am, not far from Manly in Brisbane, Qld, where Miss Hissy is sailing in a regatta on Moreton Bay. I'm not familiar with Brisbane at all. When I was here two years ago for an RWA conference, I spent most of my time at the hotel in workshops, so only glimpsed the city. It'll be interesting to see how it's changed since the floods early this year that swept away the riverside walk.

We're staying in Cleveland, which is an outer suburb. It's also a 20 minute drive to Manly (it looked closer on the map when Spanner booked the accommodation).

This morning I went for a walk around Cleveland's Raby Bay, which is crammed with mega-mansions that sit cheek-by-jowl and consume every centimetre of the land they occupy.

They come in every style, with the only common factor being that size matters. They are bloody gi-normous - there's no room for modesty here. I can't begin to imagine the resources that were gobbled up in their construction or the energy it must take to maintain them. Bali inspired, US White House, angular deco, Swiss Alps and RSL club architect-designed homes jostle for prime position along the man-made canals. One home for sale boasted a block 2373 square metres with its own private jetty.

The area is flat - excellent for weekend cyclists, it reminds me of Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne in that respect - because Moreton and Raby Bays must have, a long time ago, been filled with mangroves. In Raby Bay it seems most of the mangroves have been tarred over and replaced with sparsely spaced palm trees.

I didn't see a lot of people in Raby Bay and not one car on the tessellated bricks roads, but the few dog walkers I passed greeted me with big smiles (something that doesn't happen a lot in 'sour-puss bum face we're too busy to bother being friendly' Sydney).

However, the lack of human activity led me to speculate that some of the residents may have got lost as they rattled around their own homes and eventually died. The mansions have become mausoleums that will one day sink back into the mud from which they rose.

It's just a thought... 

Back to the sailing: there's not one breath of wind to be had today. So Miss Hissy will 'choke'. She loses her mojo when there's no breeze so she'll be in a foul mood when she and Spanner get back to Cleveland this evening.

I can't wait.