...more rumblings from the mind.

My Aunty Mary, that would be my dads sister, past away last Wednesday evening. I first heard about it in the departure hall at Bali airport. Mum had rung our house and Gabi rang me. Bugger! She was 88 or 89. A good innings but the selfish side of me was looking forward to seeing her again. So it was that I spent a couple of days in Singapore with time to reflect on the old girl. She was hilarious. She had a lot of quirks did our Aunty Mary. Darling whereever you are we love and cherish you and through us you are imortalised.
May the bar in heaven have your favourite tipple and a taxi to get you home. Now where did i hear that before??

Many thoughts have brushed past my synapses in the last few days but i think the one that I cherish the most from her is when my dad would give her that deadly second glass of wine at Christmas and other family functions, this pushed her over the edge and was enough to make her tipsy and she would let fly with the funniest things. Her laugh at these times I can hear in my head. She really was amazing. The funeral is tomorrow in Perth. At first I thought I would get a flight down there over the weekend and fly back Tuesday, but Gabi flies to Singapore herself on Tuesday which would mean I would have to get back no later than Tuesday afternoon. In the end I thought better of it. I am already planning a trip home in July for a wedding of a mate. Also the birth of his first child the week before, it will be his partners 4th. She has 3 girls from her first marriage. Would be his luck to get another girl and then he would be totally surrounded, hehe!


Snapped one of my surfboards this morning. It was the yellow mal I always ride, my favourite. A McTavish Liberator 9'1"! You can see Max putting his board in it's bag. Echo beach is the white caps you can see in the distance on the right and the white caps on the left is old mans. Where i did this.

Will drive up to Poppies in an hour or so and drop it off at one of the surf shops to have it repaired. I have the name of a good shop. 3 different people said they were the ones for snapped boards, so it must be the place. Doubt if I will ride it much from here on out but it will be a good board for visitors. I have another yellow, I brought two of their demos which are this special yellow all over. That board a 9'1" McTavish HP. It isn't as full bodied as the liberator but almost identical in silhouette. Plus I have been using my McTavish 7'4" in the huge swells that we have received of late. Perhaps i will stick with the short boards a while longer. We will see.

We went for a drive down the Bukit Peninsula the other weekend and rather than bore you with more words I will do as asked by my sister inlaw, Fluff, and put some more photos in. They are...


View of the beach Nusa Dua; I like this one as later the beach got incredibly crowded with locals but in the heat of the middle of the day this child was the only one that braved it. Well done i say!


Photo of Gabi, Maxi & Oscar. This is along one end of the Nusa Dua beaches. The place is beautiful over there. The white beaches are very different from where we surf at Canggu where the sands are volcanic therefore very dark.

Here we have a photo Oscar took of Gabi, Maxi & Myself. I am running because Oscar sat there with his finger on the button so we ended up with 30 photos of the 3 of us. Most were a bit blurred like this one but everyone is having such a great time that it makes it special.


Next is the temple on the hill at Uluwatu. Very cheeky monkeys live along these cliffs and one had a go at my camera bag. They are spoiled by tourists always feeding them and now they are sulky if you have nothing for them.









If you turn around 180 degrees then your looking down onto the surf from the cliff also down at Uluwatu. The sun starting to sink in the ocean it was a beautiful spot. We need to go there again. With our boards next time. The actual surfing spot is even further around the corner.

Lastly is a photo of me on my shortboard, we had a huge swell come through a week ago and I dropped down onto the shortboard. Waves at Padang Padang got to a reported 3 storeys high. Photos on Balisurf.com showed guys standing in the barrel with enough room above them for someone else to stand on there shoulders.

Even Canggu where I surf was so big that most people sat in the carpark. Oh and I suppose you will see me on that more and more now my favorite is broken.



More soon, promise!

Peace!

It is all quiet in the house, nothing stirred not even a SNAKE!

A couple of weeks ago, while I was overseas, Gabi sent me an email entitled, What a surprise! Well here are the photos of that little surprise. A 3' python had found his way into the pool. Made, our gardener rendered it suitable for a belt with a belt. Gabi quickly asked him not to hack the head off as it would leave the spirit of the snake here and she didn't want to be haunted by such a beasty!

So I left this tit-bit so long, I had sort of forgotten about it up until I was on that same bit of lawn as I made my way to the guest house and my computer, you get that Hmmm. Would be interesting to step on one of those at night! NOT!

















































So Today we drove down the Bukit to Nusa Dua. In amongst all the resorts there is a little carpark and a tiny beach where it is not Private Property. The beach along the front of the resorts is for hotel guests only, can you believe that! How can someone own a beach! The bit left over was nice so we strolled around there. Oscar was heating up and had tannie after tannie in the park.

Later we drove to Ulluwatu, well the temple down there. We watched the sun set from the cliffs. The monkeys tried in vain to steal my camera bag and Maxi spotted a group of dolphins out to see.

From there we drove back towards home but threw a left at Jimbaran Beach. Where down on the sand is the seafood markets. The restaurant I wanted to sit in was full so we had to settle for next door. We had a fish, a half kilo of prawns, Sate Chicken, Indonesian Spinach and rice. The boys had red Fanta's and Gabi and I had Mixed juices. I had 2 in fact. The whole lot was RP 200 000. (A$27.10) Which i thought a little expensive. But it was good. Damn tasty! We played Uno and Gabi won. The tables are right down on the beach sand and you watch the planes line up and come in. The only problem is the smoke. I can smell it on my clothes even now. Gabi and Max both complained that it hurt their eyes. Oscar and I didn't seem to get it. It was a nice way to finish the weekend.



The rest of the weekend consisted of rising early and going surfing. I haven't gotten the photos off the camera of today so I may have to post them later or let them slide. I do have some shots of Maxi and his friend Mian surfing out at Tugu.


Mian's dad, Louie who is our resident photographer was with us both mornings. Today he had to seek shelter in the rocks while the heavens opened up. Imagine, it's 7.30am still as, a grey hue to everything, the sea isn't water it's like oil and then these big tropical droplets of water come splashing down, they explode everywhere. A swell rises out the back and peaks then breaks. the only sound is the massive droplets drumming out their tune on the deck of my surfboard. Twas magic!


The boys surfing is coming up a treat! But do not take my word for it. Have a look yourself! Fluff these added photos are for you!

Anyway here is a summary of todays action. Maxi is sporting a white rashy and long hair. Mian is in a bright orange rashy. And if you look closely in one of the shots you can see the professor on a wave out behind the boys!

Until next time.

Peace.

Salamat Malam