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Yesterday started like any other day – two weetabix covered in honey, which is part of my new diet. Our plan was to go to the beach. What to do with the dog is always a problem. We decided to ask our noisy neighbour with the two kids and a dog. We’ll call the neighbour Lindy.
Before we could ask Lindy to dogsit, she beat us to it by asking would we have the kids (Pebbles and Bam-Bam) as she had a problem which needed sorting without Pebbles and Bam-Bam.
Our compromise was that we took the kids to the beach, our dog went across the road to play with their dog. The two dogs get along famously and Lindy would be back and forth to the house to keep an eye on them.
Consequently, me, my lovely wife, Pebbles, Bam-Bam, the cool-box complete with sandwiches, choccy biccies, bananas, buns, water, rola-cola and fizzy-orange, the air-bed, football, fold-up chairs and all the other paraphernalia, eventually set off, with some trepidation, for the beach.
On the way there, Pebbles started telling tales that Bam-Bam was hitting her with his club. Not interested. My lovely wife managed to attract the kids’ attention for long enough to lay down the ground rules.
- No tittle-tattling
- No fighting
- No arguing
The penalties for breaking these rules was death, followed by going home. These simple rules were followed to the letter. All day. Well maybe a hint of misbehaviour, but nothing serious. Bam-Bam can be a bit of a handful but he was a model child all day. Yes pleases and no thank yous were totally unprompted from both of them. At four and seven they both love the water and are more than adequate swimmers.
Bam-Bam decided he was going to collect material for his rockery at home. He duly set about this task with great gusto and rocks were collected of various weights from football-sized to not much bigger than a grain of sand. Many of these rockery-rocks were actually collected from the sea-bed. Bam-Bam was like Jacques Cousteau without the aid of scuba gear or goggles and snorkel. We had a bit of a routine going – he was finding stuff, dropping into my little bucket where I was rinsing the sand off and filling another bucket which was located near our seats. I made many trips back and forth.
I was wading into the sea carrying my little pink bucket when suddenly that dreaded cry went up…
“JELLYFISH!!!!!!!!!!!”
Here I was – suddenly alone in the sea. Me, the jellyfish and my little bucket. It was one of those FIGHT or FLIGHT moments. Flight didn’t seem to be an option as there were so many pairs of eyes on me – including my lovely wife, Pebbles and Bam-Bam.
Oh shit!
I waded bravely towards the monstrous jellyfish. Without a word of a lie it was about a metre across with tentacles trailing down at least six-foot (I like to mix my metaphors). How I managed to squeeze it into a child’s beach-bucket I don’t know. After an epic struggle lasting about an hour the monster of the deep was safely in the bucket and I was wading back to the shore to a tumultuous round of applause from around two hundred people.
Everyone was slapping my back and wanting to take a closer look at this monstrous, aquatic invertebrate. After struggling through the crowds I heaved the J/F on to the sand-dunes, the applause ringing in my ears. I gave a few autographs and sat down on my chair – totally exhausted. What a great day.
Addendum. By “My lovely Wife”
What actually happened was – nobody ran out of the sea. Superman simply scooped the jellyfish into the little bucket. The jellyfish fitted comfortably in the bucket. He came out of the sea followed by one curious youngster. He did throw it onto the sand-dunes. A spanish woman went and stuck it on to the end of a stick. She washed it under the beach-tap and then proudly waved it around her head for a minute and then threw it back on the sand-dunes.
sucinawriter 