Tales from the beach

Prepare yourselves for a non-stop stream of stories involving beach, booze, strangers, sand, ocean, ice cream, sun, bare feet, long days and endless amounts of adventure. In short: Summer.

Oh, and sunburn, blisters, dehydration, sleepless nights, hangovers, lazyness and the annual Christmas weight gain.

But let’s not sweat the petty things. Let’s pet the sweaty things instead. (Right, that actually came from one of those awesome rental vans. – See what you’ve done to me, uni?? I won’t even plagiarise a van.)

In my desperate desire to get a tan, I’ve neglected my blog. But all is well as long as I’m happy, right? And how can I not be, what with the sun shining from a clear blue sky every day and me having all the time in the world to kill, in whichever way I see fit.

So, I wander to the beach. Every day. I bring my Empire magazine, something to drink, and my iPod, and I’m all set for a long, lazy day in the sun. If a catastrophic earthquake struck and the entire beach was swallowed by the ocean, I would have died with a smile on my face. Because I’ve got a tan.

I spent about 5 hours in the sun today, first lying around in various grassy areas (more commonly known as ‘parks’) around the city, before heading to the Oriental Bay beach where I spent most of my afternoon/evening.

Y’know, it’s astonishing how many hours’ worth I get out of a single magazine. I’ve been reading the same Empire for a week now, and I think I might be about halfway through. It’s so nice though, just relaxing at the beach, with music in my ears, a magazine in my hands, munching on chips and drinking cold drinks straight from the fridge. There’s sand between my toes, a gentle breeze brushing over me, the sound of people laughing, and waves rolling in…

I see it now. Why people love summer.

It was at the same beach, just before I was about to leave, that I started talking to this really nice woman (about feet, of all things), and now we’ve just agreed to meet for a coffee tomorrow, and then I’ll assist her in shopping for a dress. I’m definitely going to the beach every day from now on. Oh, hang on. I already do that.

I just realised that I never wrote about the Guy Fawkes celebration. There were fireworks in the harbour. It was stunning. Then it rained, and everyone ran for shelter in the pubs and bars around town. It was messy.

Back to sunbathing. I’ve discovered that I still possess that uncanny ability to go to the beach looking like I’ve never seen the sun before, and return home looking like someone actually threw me into an oven and left me there until I was all crusty. Ouch. Another ability I possess is my selective deafness. I’m deaf to all good advice, such as ‘slip, slop, slap and wrap’ and ‘stay in the shade between 11am-4pm’ and all that. I don’t even put on sunscreen lotion (until after I’ve been burnt). I just make up my own rules as I go along. Not always a good idea, but hey, it makes life interesting (and occasionally, painful).

I’m not the best at learning from my mistakes, but here’s an attempt – note to self: never wear jewellery while sunbathing. It looks like I had my necklace tattooed in white around my neck. Aaargh.