Snow! (almost)

Talk about weird weather. Yesterday morning was warm and sunny, a promise of a beautiful winter's day. By noon there were some steel grey clouds gathering down south and a chilly wind had started up. Then suddenly, in the space of 10 minutes, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees and it started hailing. Hail is pretty common, but this hail was bizarre! It began plopping down and was soft a crumbly on the ground. The children were ecstatic, thinking it was snow and begged to go outside and play in it as it covered the deck. It was still hailing heavily though so they had to be content with Brett dashing outside and scooping a few handfuls of it into a bowl for them to look at. Josie the dog got out too and went slipping and sliding around the deck, barking a growling at the funny stuff falling from the sky. After about half an hour the hail had stopped and within minutes it had melted. Funny! The news that night showed suburbs in the south west of sydney that had had a lot more of the "soft hail", enough for kids to go sliding and snowboarding on. Considering we live in a totally snow free zone, it was a strange thing.

The weather during the school holidays was great though, so we were lucky. Mostly we hung around at home and had a couple of play days with friends. On the last Friday we took the kids down to Gerringong, about half an hour south. We took some bread, tomato sauce, drinks and fruit, and then stopped off at e butcher and bought some sausages. Then we went to a secluded spot called The Boat Harbour, which has a small park attached with public BBQ's. These were spotlessly clean and it dodn't take long before we were munching on sausage sandwiches. There was no beach there, but instead rock pools that stretched out for ages. The kids had a lovely time exploring and searching for shells and sea glass. We all came home with various treasures. After lunch and exploring we headed back into the village and got the kids an ice cream each while Brett and I had a hot chocolate. All in all a lovely day.

So here we are in Term 3! This is the time of year when I start to itch for summer and the long days. Only a month until spring! (officially, anyway) Now that Ruby is older and the boys are much more sensible I have grand plans for this summer. We live so close to the beach, I really need to make more use of it. This is going to be a summer of beach afternoons and picnic dinners with friends. I can't wait.