10 days too early but who cares, there is no snow nor cold what usually reminds me it's actually christmas (not that I'd miss it), so it might as well be now. Today we celebrated like it is customary to celebrate in OZ and loved every minute of it.
Were woken up to a champagne breakfast. Champagne, croissants, bacon (with maple syrup), eggs, pancakes.. Yum! Following tons of cleaning, cooking and preparations.
When most of the people had arrived it was time for a pool party.
It is a heat wave that has attacked us, every minute you are outside you are in agony, pool or beach are the only options. (Work outside is not!! It gets pretty crazy by 10 am. That is why we start at 6am now, to be done couple of hours earlier.
Inside with AC on, is nice and cosy. For the dinner everybody had baked something once again. As Clair and Bruce hosted it, they started preparing pretty much a week ago. (For a total of 20 people.) We helped as much as we could, cooking-wise with rum balls and dukkah for example. Steamed and roasted pumpkin, beans, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, roasted turkey, ham, lamb, lots of sauces, mint jelly and desserts: vanilla pudding with chocolate, trifle!!, several home-made ice creams and a thousand other things. I am overwhelmed with the deliciousness and so so so full.
Altho zero actual christmas feeling, it is very lovely to have a big family holiday, people come together, eat, drink and enjoy the day!
Yesterday decided to collect new additions to our hitchhiking stories. Got to Bunbury by a Capel local who went to visit his kids. People who pick hitchhikers up mostly have been hitchhiking themselves as well and traveled quite a lot, thereby have great stories to tell. Most have been to Europe and are very interested in us.
We had to buy wine glasses, as we broke some of theirs a while ago. Bought some presents as well and got carried away in Kmart. Cheap shoeees, dresses, pretty things…. (we are such bad backpackers, knowing we don't have room, still wanna buy stuff.)
Kmart is around 5 km out of town centre. You do not want to walk that in the heat, so hitchhiked once again and the biggest coincidence, the same guy picked us up, saying he has to get something from the city. Woo. Off to the beach. Pretty much the whole time we spent fighting with the waves and screeching happily when some bigger waves gave us a ride while completely burying us. Tired of all the hard work, were too lazy to walk back to the motorway aka to the other end of the town, so hitchhiked from the beach. A girl on break from the restaurant she was working was heading to the store, so took us out of town to the highway. From there a complete hippie Jimmy with an adorable dog Roxy collected us. While stepping into the van, the door fell off, he fixed it and then locked the door from inside and gave us a wink. That was the first time we doubted in our choice to sit into that car for a second. Tho it turned out to be one of the most fun rides we have had. He was going to a wedding.. of his ex-wife.
In the evening headed to Margaret River with Keiu, Clair and her girlfriends Moira and Julie. All huge music-fans. The Floor and Kill Devil Hills were performing in Settlers Tavern! Nothing can beat British India yet for me, but the bands were both good!
Last tuesday was Keiu's birthday. Made some Estonian potato salad and biscuit-cake, Clair baked some sausages, and we celebrated it like we used to as kids. Lemonade, salad and sausages.
Lemonade was replaced by wine tho. Bruce was away working in Manjimup so it was a girls night. Clair's sister was visiting and it was Niamh's last night in Capel.
As the irish ladies have all gone to celebrate christmas at home, before returning to Sydney on the new year, we are car-less. We go to work with Marion and Sarah now, who have a van with only two seats, but it has something better, a bed!! Me and Keiu hide under blankets and take a nap on the way to work. Do these 8 hours and drive to beach, have a swim in the amazing waves, debate who swims the furthest and will be shark bait if need be, and fall asleep after on the hot sand. Still feeling blessed!
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