Yesterday was meant to be a big work day, and started out as such… but I got a lot more done a lot faster than I expected, so by midday I took a break. I ended up at mum’s, where I also found Johnny, painting. I’d forgotten that he was going to be there. It was a stinker of a day, of course, and inside the house was warm enough – I wouldn’t relish doing his job. :/
Anyway, I did get more work done, and then headed off beachward on the invite of Sket. It took a while for me to get there, due to Craigie road being closed… how’s that, closing a major through-road to the beach in the hottest two weeks of the year… #%@!*… the detour they recommend takes you down Bentons road and Racecourse, which adds a full 10 minutes to the journey. For what used to be nearly 60 seconds. #%!#%$^%*(!@#$*(@#%R&@#%!(#$*!#$^!@*#$^@$%*^@!#$!&@$#*
It was hot, did I mention that? 43°, I’m told, at 4pm or so… I’m guessing it was probably about 45° at it’s peak, which of course translates to 55° in the sun… I’ve long given up on the AC in my car at those sort of temperatures, so all I had was the window down and the CD player cranked.. which all in all does actually make a pretty significant difference, but still isn’t anywhere near comfortable…
When I got to dad’s he was just starting dinner – chicken & chippies – and had enough for two, so I got lazy – I was already hungry – and sat down to scoff that. :) By the time I left his place and finally got down to the beach – wasting another 10 minutes courtesy of that retarded detour – it was about 7pm or so… it was still hot, but strangely overcast and becoming quite muggy. I was almost worried, walking along the beach, that I was too late to swim. Hah! :D
I found Sket & Sean eventually, actually where Sket had said they’d be this time :) – last week at Safety beach her directions had put me up at the Marina, more or less, while in fact they were two thirds of the way down the beach to the south – and met their friends… now, let’s see if I can get the names… there was Steve & Sam[antha], then <insert name here> and Erin… then some guy sporting a fierce-some mullet, who’s name was mentioned but whom I can only now remember as Mulletaur… I think that’s it.
Anyway, I did go for a swim, and it was actually really nice – almost too warm in the water. We were at the south end of the Mt. Martha beach, though, where the sand bar stretches out at below waist height for what seems like forever… it must have seemed like I was heading to Geelong to those watching on the beach… walking and walking and walking and walking, until it eventually got to about belly-button height, which is about as good as it gets before you get over the rocks and into the reef. I’m a bit of a pansy these days – I like to either see a clear sandy bottom, or nothing but deep water… unless I’ve got goggles and a snorkel, of course, but alas I did not.
I floated and swam around for a bit, then meandered back to shore. In the shallows there we noticed a big blobby jelly-fish just floating nearby… it didn’t look particularly angry – and poo-poo to anyone who takes issue with describing a jellyfish as angry; it’s a personification you cad! :P – but was quite big – about basketball size or so, I guess. The girls freaked about it, but of course wanted to get close to have a look before running away out of the water. :D
There was also another big jellyfish washed up on the beach, I noticed as I was walking along originally. It looked like the same type as I’d seen last week, except it wasn’t nearly as red and scary looking as the previous one. It may be the same kind as we saw floating, alive, in the water… I imagine they’d deform quite a bit when you take them out of water.
I don’t remember jellyfish like that at the beach, when I was younger. Sure you had those little kidney jellyfish things, but that was about it… there was one time at Ranelagh or wherever it was – the beach that had the raft anchored out a bit – where the sea was absolutely chockers with little jellyfish… flat things, about the size of a drink coaster or so, with dark middles. We, being carefree kids, just ignored them and swam out to the raft. It was kinda gross swimming through them, but they didn’t seem to bother us. Of course, when we started swimming back shortly after, we realised that they do sting – although you don’t feel it, you just go slowly numb. Swimming is tricky when you can’t feel your extremities. We made it, evidently, and without being in any real danger, but it certainly put me off swimming in jellyfish again. :/
What worries me with these big ones I’ve been seeing the last two weeks is, you could be swimming along blissfully unaware, and then smack into one of them, face-first. I’m sure these big ones have effective stingers; I wouldn’t want to cop one in the face. Seeing one actually floating – perfectly alive and presumably hungry – in the water quite put me off going for another swim. :/
In any case we spent most of the evening just sitting on the beach, chatting. It was pretty good – with the gentle breeze and the sun sinking below the clouds towards the horizon, the temperature had dropped to a much more pleasant high twenties, and it was just perfect. As such, no one was in much hurry to leave – me least of all, knowing dad’s place was going to be stinking hot and it’d be a shit of a night. We had pizza on the beach, which was good.
Eventually I decided I should head off, given it was more or less dark – 10pm or so – and I actually had the idea in my head to get another two hours or so of work done before bed. Hah. :) As soon as I walked up to the road, from the beach, the temperature rose 5°, and it was no longer in the comfort zone.. of course dad’s place was even worse – absolutely dead still, and definitely well above 30° still. He and Jens were sitting out the back – it was much cooler out than in – and I joined them… it was just too hot to have your palms resting on a Powerbook, which gets pretty crispy on a cool day let alone one like yesterday (although of course in winter I cherish my crispy Powerbook :D ).
It struck me that a lot of people, like us, were probably having a late night not because they had anything in particular to do, but because they simply had to wait for the temperature to drop down to something they could sleep through. I got tired of waiting at about 12:30, and went to bed anyway. I had the fan on high, but it did very little. I blinked a few times and it was morning… I don’t think I had a second of proper sleep. I feel like death warmed up today.
Even at the coolest during the night it was still high 20’s… I love summer, but I’m increasingly of the opinion that people who build houses in Melbourne without proper insulation, eaves, etc, should be shot.
