February 13. Day 44. I don't mean to be catty but ....

I'll let you in on a little secret. I don't actually hate cats, although I do a pretty good job of giving that impression. However, an allergy to the hair of many cats isn't an endearing trait. I fully admit that the wheezing and sneezing is of my making and not the cats' so I will take full responsibility.
My "problem" with cats is that they are not dogs.
My family has always had dogs. I know dogs. I adore dogs. I get dogs. Cats are more of a mystery and I think they like it that way. But sometimes I see a cat that stops me in its tracks. Today that was Chairman Meow. The purebred Tonkinese was being walked on his lead by his human Mark outside the Powerhouse. A big dog approached. He staged a sit down strike, in exactly the same way Rumple does in the same situation. I started to like this cat more. This pampered puss was sounding more and more like my dogs. Further evidence was revealed through CM's Instagram site (seriously, what sort of a human has an Insta site for a pet? Don't answer that). There's footage of CM in the dishwasher. On May 17 last year there's a pic of Rumple in the dishwasher. There are pics of CM in a Santa outfit. Yep. We have those too. There's CM in Halloween gear. Tick. He's on a laptop. Tick. In a cafe. Tick. Being carried on a human's shoulder like a parrot. Tick. Tick. Tick. This cat has style. Doggy style.

February 12. Day 43. A spoon full of sugar

The first day back at work after a holiday is always a tough ask. A five hour planning meeting on day one, well that's going to be a struggle. When asked about dietary requirements, I listed sugar and caffeine. I suspect they thought I was joking. I wasn't. My heart sang a little when the first words at the meeting were "there will be no butchers' paper, coloured markers or sticky notes". Praise the Lord. I will never get why some meeting facilitators seem to think important decisions are best made by treating staff like they are back in kindy. They only bit of kindy I want retained is the afternoon nap. If I can't have that you will need to feed me sugar and caffeine. We got cake. It was one of those meetings talking more about vision than specifics. I like that. I can not pretend I wouldn't prefer to be back at the beach but a spoon full of sugar did help this medicine go down

February 11. Day 42. Dancing Queen

 Don't you just love it when your favourite things come together. So Sunday brunch with some great people at my favourite Sunday brunch place. And the additional seating area where we camped ourselves had ABBA everywhere. God I love ABBA. I haven't really evolved much since the early 80s.  I'm okay with that. Actually, I'm more than okay with that. In fact when drawing up our Wills the other day, our solicitor asked about funeral songs. I wasn't expecting the question. I'd given the matter no thought but I said Thank You For the Music. Exactly why I said that I'm not sure given I have zero musical ability. However, I decided since that I could see no reason to change it. Let's take a more liberal to music. I'd like to think somewhere along the way I've brought a song to the heart of the people close to me and to some of the thousands of young people I've taught. Journalism is a job of passion, like music but without the melody. As American musician Frank Ocean said "Here's what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is just to press play."  So you can thank me later, hopefully much, much later.

February 10. Day 41. Parting is such sorrow

The universe was testing me today. It was glorious on the beach this morning. Just about perfect. But by 10am I had to be packed up and gone. This hardly seems fair when stinking hot temps are forecast for the weekend. Knowing that work will hit deep end level from Monday is not exactly an incentive. The property we've been staying in is just about perfect in terms of beach holiday homes. It's absolute beachfront overlooking a long, sandy and entirely dog off-leash beach. It's also only an hour's drive from Brisbane. Plus. Plus. Plus. Properties like this rarely come on the market. But as I pulled out of the driveway I noticed the distinct estate agent open house sign. Just a little bit along the same street, a much bigger more modern property is for sale. There's the small matter of a $3 million plus price tag. It would be good value if I had $3 million. I have to either 1. Win Gold Lotto or 2. Convince myself that my dislike of sand in the sheets is a reason not to want to live at the beach ...

February 9. Day 40. Riding a wave

Some things are worth waiting for. Traditions may be bent but not broken. Every year my family celebrates Christmas with two other families. It's been going on since the kids were in early primary school. The oldest of the offspring has just graduated from uni. The youngest begins next week which means our lives are a little more complicated than they were in the early years. But we were determined to find a date when everyone was about and in the finest "better late than never" we celebrated Christmas in February. We ate, drank and were merry at a table overlooking the ocean which was just about perfect. It was also the best way ever to spend the last night of our beach holiday. Until next time Currimundi ... we'll miss you

February 8, Day 39. Look to the heavens

 It's amazing how much we fail to see just by not looking. By concentrating on what we usually do, it's so east to miss stuff. We all do it. Probably most of the time it's a good way to filter out the noise and get things done. But it has it's downsides. Like today. This morning it was raining and I was feeling a bit off. So I broke one of my own rules and took the dogs to the beach in the middle of the day. Because it was the middle of the day and not before breakfast my mother came too. We'd just left the house when I saw the parachutists descending. "Look up," I said to mum. She did and after a bit kept walking. I stayed for longer and took some photos. I then caught up. "What kept you?" she asked. "The skydivers," I said. She had no idea what I was talking about.  She'd looked up back at the house and missed four people falling from the sky just above us. Just as well they weren't committing a crime or about to meet an unfortunate accident. "So Mrs Hetherington, you were on the beach when the incident happened. Can you tell us what you saw?" "Um, the beach?" Sounds like a dodgy lie if ever I've heard one. My dogs would have made better witnesses because they saw them. It's just another of the wonderful things you see when you are at the beach and have time to look. It also reminded me that the next time I go skydiving (I've done it twice) I want a beach landing

February 7. Day 38. Carry on camping

It would be going a bit far to say I'm still haunted by Year 11 Biology Camp on the Sunshine Coast but it's not far from the truth. It bucketed down. Climbing through the mangrove mud in winter in the wet is no fun. It also makes little sense because the school I went to was on the Brisbane River probably only a few hundred metres from the nearest mangrove. I also remember having to try and find and identify bird life, something I found insanely annoying at the time. Now it's something I enjoy a lot. My mind went to 16-year-old biology student me today when walking along the beach just after sunrise.  There were a couple of groups of girls sitting on the beach watching a much larger group off power walking. They looked like they would rather be in bed, until the dogs went and jumped all over them. We chatted. I was right. They were on camp. They had been dragged out of bed. Most of the others were off exercising but they were exercising their right to do no such thing. Good for them. My dogs enjoyed the attention so much so that on the walk home they went and shared their love with a woman reading a book on the beach. Fun times made even better by the fact that my accommodation has running hot water ....