We’ve just been down to the Victorian coast for ten days during these Easter holidays. The girls jumped straight on the Powerwings (a type of scooter) when we arrived and were excited to be sleeping in top bunks in the bunk room. Only two of their cousins spent Easter with us this year – Abe and Harry – both were mostly absorbed with their young teenage friends but Abe gave them some attention and showed Rhea how to use a knife with her fork at the dinner table. It’s useful having older children for that – one of my theories why Lara and Rhea are free spirits is that they have no older child reference point to show them things like that.
At the beach, Lara mastered the science of making a good sandcastle, with the right wetness of sand and a few taps at the end. Once we had gone one day they wanted to jump the waves in their wetsuits with their paddle boards every day, even when the weather turned from sunny to overcast and quite cold. It was lovely in the water though; I had a swim too in borrowed swimmers, as I hadn’t thought to bring my own or that I would choose to go in the sea in late April.
Science spilled out to Easter activities too: Lara was asking about the effect of sun and cold on Easter eggs so I suggested (borrowing aunty Maggie’s terminology) that we do an eggsperiment to see what happened if we put one in the fridge, one in the freezer and one in the sun. And then I did an experiment of my own, to see whether there would be less whingeing if we did a 3km clifftop walk by telling the girls we were going to a café near the lighthouse to have scones and a drink of their choice (which we were, but there was a long walk to get there) rather than telling them we were doing a long walk to the café. I.e. ‘Don’t mention the walk.’ It worked – they were distracted by the scenery and danced down the path exclaiming at the views, at a couple flying a drone, and hiding under the park benches we rested on along the way.
The Easter egg hunt was exciting and loaded them up with a good 39 eggs for Rhea and 25 for Lara, not to mention medium-sized eggs from us and their grandmothers and then a post-Easter-discounted treat each from the chocolate factory down the road.
More science through us all watching the Australian children’s movie one night on TV, Paper Planes. The science of flight, and also a lovely story about friendship and perseverance, based on the real event of a paper plane flying competition in which the main character competes nationally then internationally. It’s the first non-animated film the girls have ever seen and they loved it, but they had real trouble understanding truth from fiction. ‘Is it real? Is it really true?’, they asked. Soon after they had the same question about Peppa Pig, which really bamboozles me. How can an animated story about talking pigs possibly be true? The fact that they have to ask at the age of almost seven highlights to me the importance of the messages conveyed in animations like this, and the importance of including female characters. If they think animations like that are true then they are swallowing the world view they depict as well.
It was nice for the girls to spend some time with their other grandmother and one of their other aunts and they enjoyed feeding their cousins’ dog, Nostro, the king parrots and the pet budgie too. I like them running pretty wild in the neighbourhood, as I did in some of my childhood holidays. When she was packing up to leave, their aunt told Rhea and Lara they were in charge of bringing Nostro home from his wanderings so he could be put in the car too. I said they could go wherever they wanted cross country between the unfenced bush blocks and they ran off, Lara with the dog’s empty food bowl because she thought that would make him think he’d get fed if he followed her. They found him down the cul-de-sac and led him by the collar back up the steep driveway, pleased with their success.
Nature, play and family stimulated the girls these holidays, and chocolate sweetened the experience. After only seeing native gums and wattle for ten days, we returned home to a European-style autumn in full flight, with clear skies and golden, red and vibrant orange leaves glinting in the trees. There were also ankle-deep leaves in the garden, nestling happily in the warmth of the mild sun.
It’s hard to come back after a restful holiday, but it’s good to be home.
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