Monday Musings....a day at the beach Aussie style...

A visit to the ocean remains one of the great free restorative practices in the world. The beachside is yet to become an 'admission by fee' affair, at least here in Australia, and ever since I was a wee tot, it's been my favourite weekend away.

What is it about a day at the beach that puts life in perspective? Is it the leveller of realising that the 'body beautiful' comes in many shapes and sizes? Is it that we are all stripped of our designer bags and jewellery (well, mostly anyway...Noosa does boast some fashionable local icons)? Or is it just that Sun, Surf and Sand are a great way to wash away the cares of the week?

We spent a day at Main Beach at Noosa yesterday doing exactly that.

One of the worlds prettiest spots, sporting a great protected beach with a gentle wave, friendly lifeguards and an enviable cafe and shopping strips just steps away. Not that we frequent the cafes and shops, but we do love a wander down Hastings Street, home bottled icy water in hand, window shopping and people watching to our hearts' content.

When we visit Noosa we prefer to rise early and beat the crowds by arriving around 7am. Not only does this afford greater parking opportunities (parking being a nightmare there later in the day), but also allowing a longer window of sunbathing and swimming time before the scorching midday sun sets in.

We usually take an esky (Aussie thermal cooling box) packed with our favourite breakfast and snack items. These would traditionally include rice crackers, sliced cheese from the big block of edam at home, fresh fruit in season, home made goodies like Labna and home marinated olives and fetta, yoghurt and muesli balls, iced tea or juice and big bottles of chilled water. A Latte` on arrival, in the shade of the native conifers is our one 'bought' indulgence.

A walk to the isthmus commonly known as The Groin is the first order of the day, after setting up beach chairs, towels and boogie boards. We set off at a brisk pace to earn our breakfast, making it to the groin and back (visible in the far distance of this photo) in about 20 minutes.

An invigorating dip is next, before diving into our esky to explore the treasures within. We munch away companionably while the Lifeguards complete their setting up and the rumpled Mums and Dads and young couples start arriving.

Terse words are exchanged by the couple next to us who have 4 children under 5 years old in tow and who are trying to marshall the kids while setting up their sun shelter, umbrellas and towels...clearly they're here for the long haul. The kids squeal excitedly at the incoming tide, racing back and forth to their harried parents. The Diva and her friend take our raised eyebrow cue, and go over to offer assistance by amusing the little ones with some sand art in the shape of a turtle. A grateful 'thanks' is mouthed our way.

The younger pair behind us, recline elegantly in designer swimwear, each absorbed in thier iPhone, before the effects of the night before and the warm sun on their limbs renders them somnambulent.

A large group of folk, perhaps a decade older than us arrive. All clad in black bathers of one form or another, they jolly each other into a vigorous swim across the bay, before, like us, delving into an enormous esky of fresh delights, exchanging stories of caravanning and camping.

I produce my book of the moment, 'Not Without My Daughter', whilst The Musician, The Diva and her friend, head off into the surf.

The beachfront is filling now, as the later arrivals jostle each other for a spot.

Time passes, I doze, the rest of the family frolics and by 11am, we've had enough. Too hot, too busy.

So, we assemble our gear, set off back to the car, repack it all, ready for the next excursion.

We're all refreshed, calm, relaxed and showing a bit of colour for our morning in the sunshine.

Back to the accomodation for a nap and a light lunch before curling up to watch a great sci-fi movie.

A lazy afternoon ensues, with a reluctant move toward home by about 6pm.

We arrive home by 8:30, having enjoyed a meal of fish and chips on the way back, and scurry for the diary to see when we can do it all again.

Bliss....what's your favourite getaway?

Here's my own recipe for Tropical Yoghurt Muesli Balls...the perfect portable breakfast for any day of the week. Start the preparation a few hours before bed and roll the balls before retiring for the night. This gives the muesli a chance to absorb the liquid for nice firm little rounds.

You need:

1 cup any kind of muesli. I use a Gluten Free one.

1 cup any flavour of yoghurt. I prefer my home made Greek yoghurt.

3 tablespoons pulp type fruit salad or crushed pineapple. We have one here in Australia called Golden Circle. Their fruit salad is crushed pineapple and other fruits with passionfruit pulp included. It's my favourite.

1 cup dessicated coconut.

Mix the muesli, fruit salad and yoghurt together in a small bowl and allow to sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour to allow the liquid to be absorbed and the muesli to soften.

Roll into balls as large or small as you like, and toss in the dessicated coconut.

Return to the refrigerator for at least an hour to firm.

Enjoy!

If you could live anywhere...Number Two......

I adore this house. It's seashell shape fascinates me. It's called the Nautilus house, and is found in Mexico.

Note its smooth undulating lines...

This stained glass is to die for...

Not sure about the round bed...I prefer a bit of space to thrash around in, but loving the curved wall of cupboards...

And the living room...well it's kind of Sponge Bob Squarepants meets The Jetsons, isn't it? Adore the organic look of the circular skylights, the greenery and again, the gems of rainbow coloured light formed by that fab bank of technicolour glass.

Life here would be a calm oasis, wouldn't it?

Meals taken in that garden like lounging area...tapas served on large glass or clay platters perhaps. Things that echo the curves of the house. Jalapenos stuffed with oozing cheese, oysters drizzled with lime and ginger, bocconcini cheese wrapped with proscuitto, rounds of zuccini (courgette) filled with lean mince flavoured with earthy spices like cumin, coriander and cinnamon.

Sigh.....

What's on your Tray of Bliss today?

http://www.wayfaring.info/2008/02/11/the-best-house-of-the-year-2007/

My Australian Garden in Spring....who needs roses and peonies!

Pink Oleander...

Vivid Orange Nasturtium...

$32 strawberries which you can read about here!

Heirloom Gerbera....

Red Geranium...

Orange Clivea...

Hippeastrum....

White Plumbago....

Humble Dandelion....

Pretty-purple-thing-I-don't-remember-the-name-of.....

Whilst I love the traditional French and English gardens, I realise now that my old fashioned Aussie Garden has it's own charms...

What's on your Tray of Bliss today?

Sharing at...

The Charm of Home

Budgeting and Insourcing...accept your limitations!

$32 Strawberries...keep reading and you'll see why!

I often have friends visit, who cannot believe that we live so well on so little.

We eat well, we entertain well, we dress well, our daughter, and our youngest son (we actually have four sons, but the older three are all grown and married) want for little, and we travel overseas every two years or so.

There are many, many blogs out there these days on saving money, living frugally and reducing your carbon footprint.

But most of the families I know personally don't subscribe to them, and wouldn't dream of planting a vege patch or repurposing a pair of jeans into a tote bag. It's all too much trouble. Even if it's for the reward of an overseas trip funded by the bank account, rather than the credit card.

The problem is that upon first viewing, all of these things are 'too much trouble'. It's all a bit of hard yakka, as we say here in Australia.

So you need to start small, like I did. That said, you also need to choose your battles wisely. Can I tell you about some of mine? You might learn a thing or two.

When I commenced my money savings journey in earnest after many years of frittering my hard earned cash away on stuff that only made the retailers wealthy, I had a few false starts.

One of those was soap making.

I am a sucker for scented bath and body products. I never could go past a Body Shop or Bath and Body or Lush, without buying just a couple of things. These coupla things would undoubtedly run into double or triple digits in dollar terms, but what-the-hey....

So one of my early efforts focused on making my own luxuriously scented soaps.

Well after spending about $100 on ingredients and equipment, I was ready. Or so I thought. Measure this, weigh that...oops need something else. Dash out, get missing thing, go back to start. High anxiety, due to many, many warnings on the dangers of inhaling this or spilling that. Get soap made, leave to cure behind lounge, to great grumbling from The Musician Husband. Test at 3 weeks, notice great chunks of caustic soda...toss, start over. Eventually get something useable and nicely rustic, but family refuses to use it as it 'looks funny'. Dole it out as gifts to unsuspecting friends. Experiment over. That said, I did eventually have soapmaking success which you can read about here.

I had greater success with hand and body creams, which was a little more foolproof, but ultimately went back to the pharmaceutical stuff for the face as the face really, really needed it. All good on the body cream though, as well as pillow/linen spray, bubble bath, solid perfume, home made talcum powder, bed powder, and lavender bath bombs.

But it was the overwhelming success of my home made Limoncello which actually caused me to wonder if I'd missed my calling as a Grand Brewer. Maybe my family and friends are all just hopeless imbibers of exotic liqueurs, and they would have loved it not matter what....lol!

I had similar epiphanies with my vege patch. Plant strawberries, get one strawberry, give up. Try again. Get 4 strawberries this time...caculate how much I spent on wicker planters, potting mix, wet granule thingoes, strawberry runners and fertiliser. Decide $32 per strawberry is false economy, and give up.

Tomatoes...same. I do have some tomatoes on a tomato plant in my front yard right now. But for the life of me, I can't make the tomato plant stand up with the blessed tomatoes on the thing. I've planted them in a posh tomato planter with it's own add-a-ring tower to guide the tomato. The tomato plant ignored it and grew off on it's own tangent, falling over and breaking at regular intervals. I've staked them, they fall over, I've tied them to a palm tree, they broke off. I don't know. Maybe fruitish things are not for me. The Musician Husband just kept asking me why I don't buy the tomatoes for $2.99 a kilo. A fair question. 'They taste better' simply garnered a raised eyebrow.

I've had better success with leafy things. I've got a lovely nasturtium happening and we do eat it in place of Rocket which we love. I also have a Wild Rocket, some asparagus, a finger eggplant and some chilli. All A-Ok. But I am the only one who eats those things and it's not like I'm saving a bomb by not having to buy them.

I've decided that people who make a success of this kind of lifestyle deserve a medal, really. Honestly they must do nothing else. I admire them and all, but it's just not for me. I can't for the life of me, understand how they grow enough strawberries, or use the oversupply of tomatoes and zucchinis. And I'm not being derisive, I am just asking myself the question.

Oh and did I tell you about my sewing adventures? Buy sewing machine at $250, buy numerous patterns at around $17 each....perhaps 10 of 'em, buy fabric. Look at instructions, recoil in distaste. Measure something? Overlock something? Hand stitch something else? Hmmmm. Not to mention The Musician Husband complaining about the dining table being set up as a sewing station. (Do you see a common theme here...) Okay, maybe on another day.

Cutting my own hair was another strategy. Armed with detailed instructions from a reputable money saving website and a sharp pair of scissors, I hacked my way to a visit to my hairdresser. I had to. It looked awful. I think my hairdresser is still chuckling to herself over that one.

Have I mentioned the breadmaker and the slow cooker? Both wonderful inventions. Did I also mention that the average temperature where I live is around 27 Celsius almost year round, except when it rises into the high 30's right around Christmas? Yes we have our chilly moments...they last about six weeks. Have you ever tried to have a slow cooker and a breadmaker on the go when the ambient temperature is in the 30's? That's a minimum of around 86 Fahrenheit. No way. We eat cold food when it's hot and hot food when it's cold. It just makes sense. So overall...useability factor...about 3 out of 10. We'll stick with yummy Poached Chicken Breast, thanks very much.

These days, I've accepted my limitations and my money saving strategies are more about cooking from scratch, shopping from my own wardrobe and the thrift shop before even crossing the threshold of a retailer of any kind, making gourmet gifts and preserves, and making sure that my pantry is well stocked for tight times.

I don't spend on gym memberships when I can walk for free, I don't join weight loss programmes when I can Google how to eat sensibly complete with menu plans and recipes, I don't sit in stinky nail salons to get my nails looking nice when I can have a quiet moment in my own back yard painting my nails over a cuppa, I don't buy books or magazines when I can join the library or search the net, and I don't buy my children experiential gifts...I give them the gift of my own experience. I reduce my carbon footprint by walking for exercise rather than driving to the aforementioned gym and buying local where I can. I recycle, repurpose and buy pre-loved wherever possible.

So if you want to, as my blog title suggests, live a life of which your Nanna would be proud, look at where your hard earned cash goes. Make savings in those areas where you are humanly able, where your own strengths lie, and don't worry about what the rest of the world is doing. The important thing is to make small changes where you can. There is a Chinese proverb that says 'The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' Amen to that.

Don't make soap when you can make soup, don't grow tomatoes when you don't eat them, and don't plant strawberries in a $30 wicker basket. The birds and wildlife will still get to them before you do, no matter what they're planted in.

What's on your Tray of Bliss today?

...Mimi...