Friday the 4th
It amazes me that my computer still thinks it is at home in SB sitting on the glass coffee table. Why haven’t they thought to put the same chip in a computer that they put in a phone, so that it automatically updates to whatever time zone you are in? I suppose I could change it but I probably won’t. There is a 17-hour time difference between here and SB. It is funny to think we will be celebrating solstice down here, only we will be celebrating another solstice of the shortess day of the year, not the longest. Frodo where is your Christmas tree and candles? Somehow that image doesn’t fit in with the warm beautiful weather we are having. It is suppose to be quite warm this weekend…30 C (I guess that is about 88F)….I still don’t have the temperatures down either.

The sun is starting to color the sky so I am going to go meditate…..more later.

You would think a rising sun would do the same magic to the sea and the beach and rocks as a setting sun, but it doesn’t. Convent beach is the name of the beautiful beach that is directly in front of us that I posted pics of yesterday. Greg said there used to be a convent here and the nuns would swim at this beach. It is a very gently sloping beach, perfect for kids as there are no big waves and it is nicely sheltered from the off shores that blow. As the sun has gently come up above the horizon I have been watching the tide come in for the last hour and the patterns the waves make in this changing light. The front sides of the small waves that roll up the beach are reflecting golden light as they come over. It is very beautiful. Today is the first day that I feel like I am “all here”. It is nice to feel like I am in alignment once again.

A lot of folks walk in the early morning and our street seems to be a favorite since it runs along the oceanfront. I see a lot of the same people each morning, probably 20 or so in the hour’s time between 6:00 and 7:00 o’clock.

Australian coin money is somewhat different than what we have. They don’t have pennies and just round the dollar amount up or down to the nearest .5 cents. I don’t know why they don’t just mark things in .5-cent increments! They do have a small coin about the size of a nickel that is worth $2 and a coin about the size of a quarter that is worth $1. Kind of confusing, and you can have a pocket full of change that is actually worth something.
Today’s word is beautiful. This may be one of their favorite words and they use it to describe everything most especially food, such as “this is a beautiful piece of fish”, and they mean beautiful tasting, not looking. You could also substitute lovely for beautiful in that sentence. Lovely is another word they use a lot to describe anything from a holiday to a piece of fruit.

In listening to an aussie speak, not only do they slur their words, use words that aren’t in my dictionary, have an accent that even if the word is in your dictionary, you don’t recognize it, but they also seem to have much more inflection in what they say that makes it that much harder to understand what they are saying. I am starting to feel like I am going deaf I have to say, “what was that you said” so many times a day. That or you nod your had or make some noncommittal grunt and hope they didn’t say their mother just died.

cheerio mate...kate