Merry Christmas!

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Up at 6am for my traditional Christmas morning jog - just this year in considerably warmer temperatures. So once completed I jumped straight in the pool to cool off. We all sat and had a very yummy breakfast of fresh fruit salad together before Dell and Cheryl headed off to church and Matt, Rowena and I headed to the beach. We headed to a beautifully quiet beach, and the tied was going out so we splashed and walked out in the shallow water for ages. Eventually we got far enough out to be thigh deep and go for a swim. We realised however that there were lots of jellyfish in the slightly deeper water going out with the tide, we must have past around 30, and after successfully dodging them it got increasingly harder, so we headed back in to the shallow water and the shore. I did get stung on my foot but these types don’t sting to bad and they aren’t poisonous, so it was just like being stung by a large stinging nettle.

We lazed on the beach reading for several hours, and I played around on the sand, writing Merry Christmas and playing with the self-timer on my camera. We headed back around 11am, and Matt was greeted with a surprise on our return. His brother (Chris) and Chris’s finance (Kristan) had come to surprise Matt and Dell.

We all settled down to our Christmas lunch of prawns, cold ham, salad, fresh bread and chutneys, with a big dose of chatting and laughing. After lunch Matt and Chris took the eskeys (big cool boxes) round to the pool and we all spent several hours in the pool, splashing around and tormenting each other with big water guns that Chris had found.

After we had dried out – Chris got pulled in the pool with all his clothes on, the mass skype sessions started with all of Matts family across Australia.

By 5pm Chris and Kristan headed off to see Kristans parents, and we all went for snooze – shattered by the days excitement and ciders! Rowena and I headed into the pool to wake up and then started skyping the UK. Around 7pm we realised we hadn’t opened any presents in all the excitment, so we exchanged the gifts – presents aren’t a big thing, it’s more about spending time with the family and then had some trifle for pudding.

The rest of the evening was spent watching Wallace and Grommet and skyping more family in the UK. I thought a warm Christmas would be strange, but I had such a fun day, filled with much laughter and prawns. I couldn’t have asked for a more fabulous experience of Christmas in Australia!

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