THE COLOUR OF MADNESS
A Blog About Living with Mental Illness
Salty Air For The Soul
Mr 11 Graduated year 6 the other day, I can’t believe my third born already starts high school in January! The school held a (very) small 5 minute ceremony where they handed out graduation certificates and then had a morning tea afterward. I’ve got to say I was a little bit disappointed, when Mr15 & Mr 14 graduated there were slide shows, sad music and thank you speeches that cracked up the students and left parents weeping, but alas the primary school has a new principal and I guess fun and sentiment aren’t really her thing.
Luckily Mr 11 isn’t sentimental either and instead asked “can I skip the rest of the day and come home with you?” Well why the hell not. But as home is boring and it was only 10:30am we drove in the other direction and ended up at “Surf Beach”, which is ironically the least surf able beach in Australia.
Mr 11 had his swimmers with him as they were supposed to be going to the pool with school in the afternoon anyway, so he got changed and headed into the water while I took off my shoes and wandered along the beach with the sand in my toes, breathing in the salty air and enjoying the warm sun beating down on my back. I finally felt like I was clearing my head of the demons that had been haunting me all morning.
When Mr 11 emerged from the water and started collecting shells we discovered a number of blue bottle jellyfish were starting to wash up on the shore line, they have an incredibly painful sting so 11 decided that was quite enough swimming for one day and we went into the bayside town for lunch.
We settled on a nice little cafe on the water and watched the seagulls fighting over the small fish they were catching, the fish were far too big for them to swallow anyway and it was hilarious to see the current holder of the prize puffing out his feathers and strutting down the footpath squawking loudly in victory until another bird swooped down and stole the wiggling fish right out of his beak.
11 is turning 12 next month and is exceptionally short for his age but he is also exceptionally emotionally mature, he looks about 8 or 9 but acts like a 40yr old half the time. When the waitress brought out our menu’s she gave Mr 11 a cup of colouring in crayons and a picture to colour and said “here’s the children’s menu sweetheart”. The children’s menu stated ‘under 10’s’. 11 gritted his teeth, said ‘thank you’ and gave me the biggest death stare.
I managed to contain my laughter until the waitress had gone back inside. Poor 11, he doesn’t usually mince words so I was proud of him for not telling the waitress where to go. When she returned he stated bluntly that he would have the salt n pepper squid off the regular menu and a coke, thank. You. Very. Much.
We drove home with the sunroof open and the music up, in a total turn around from that morning, I felt the most relaxed I had in weeks. It’s really nice spending one on one time with my kids, I don’t get much of an opportunity to do that.
One Comment on “Salty Air For The Soul”
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THE COLOUR OF MADNESS 
Sounds like a really lovely day with Mr 11 🙂 The beach looks beautiful! Something about the fresh salt air that does my soul the world of good too. The cafe story made me laugh. Poor kid, but good on him for just ordering what he wanted xx
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