A Day of Wine, Beach and Acceptance

The boys and I had their cousins from Western Australia come over for a play. They are cousins from 'the other side' who have a gorgeous mum who thankfully understands all the crap that divorce, parental responsibility and hardships can cause within a family, as she has been through it all too. She just wanted her kids to have some time with their cousins, as I do, without the B.S. of divided families getting involved.

We had a 'grazing lunch' of cold cuts, sour dough bread, dukkah, guacamole, cheese, salad vegetables and summer fruits before heading down to the beach. I told her we had a couple of options... we could go down to the marine sanctuary at Ricketts Point and do some snorkelling which is usually a bit of a hidden secret, but The Age decided to publish an article about how much of a 'hidden secret' it is of marine wildlife on our doorstep today, so I expected that the whole world would want to check it out on a 36 degree Celsius day. The other option was to go down the street to the closest beach, avoid Half Moon Bay as all the northern suburb tourists take over, and enjoy the quiet of the beach that only the locals know. We made it to the car park and there were plenty of parks to choose (and parks with shade), and walked down to the foreshore.

It was stunning! And as you can see, not crowded at all! The water was a tropical blue/green accentuating the white sand. We plonked our towels down against the rocky groyne and walked into the soothing cool water. As we waded in the crystal clear water, the rocks were laden with thousands of mussels and abalone. It was a marine sanctuary of its own. We even found a dead crab boiled in a rock pool ready to eat (not that we did!). The kids had a ball playing with their water pistols, and we mums enjoyed the relaxing nature that the beach provides. We could see on the other side of the bluff, how busy Half Moon Bay was with its congested colour of umbrellas, beach shelters and bodies, so we were happy with our choice of beach.

We came home after a couple of hours, via the milk bar for some frozen slurpees for the kids, and my ex-sister-in-law and I enjoyed a bottle of wine on the porch while the kids played Skylanders inside. We talked about how she has coped with her separation, and I divulged some information about how we've been coping.

However, she had some wise words to say... never go into a relationship on the premise of 'helping him'... find someone who's willing to help you or enhance your life, not overwhelm it. And accept at all the mutual benefits for everyone when a relationship ends. They are wise words, however it's hard to break that nature to 'help' people when it's embedded into you.

After we realised we finished the bottle of wine, she packed up her kids and returned to the mother ship :) It was great for the kids to catch up, because she does have amazing kids, and it's becoming more and more obvious to me, that kids from broken relationships have been through so much, that their emotional maturity is so much more enhanced, their happiness in accepting what they do have and their understanding in what they don't have, their parents together, is extremely humbling.