Today I am (belatedly) grateful for ... the beach and books

1. We live a 5 minute drive from the beach. We don't got as often as we should. This morning we went (to Swanbourne rather than our local beach) and had a lovely walk along the path to North Cottesloe. On the way back I realised Little E had fallen asleep in the pram which is quite unusual these days. It was a weird time of day for her to sleep as she'd only been up for about two hours, but was I complaining? Not when there was a lovely new cafe, the Naked Fig, to provide a cup of tea and a newspaper! Eonly slept for about 30 minutes but woke up happy, and despite not having brought bathers for either of us I decided it was such a beautiful day (and that given E had had such a strangely timed sleep that she should get completely tired out) that we would have a swim. So we sat in the shallows and played with water and sand and were both very happy. The weather lately has been such that if we get out at about 7:30 or 8:00 we have an hour or more before it gets too hot, so my resolution for the week is that we need to get to the beach more often.

2. Books. I couldn't survive without them. I mainly read fiction, although since I no longer work I do enjoy non-fiction more. I re-read my favourites compulsively, particularly childhood favourites. I can't really figure out why I do this, as there must be several dozen books that I have read literally hundreds if not thousands of times each. All I can say is that I find the process relaxing; the familiarity of the plot and characters allows my mind to switch off, wind down and go elsewhere. When I pick up a book I've read before I don't always read it from cover to cover, I often just dip into it and re-read bits I particularly liked, or sometimes just open it and randomly read chunks. I do also read new things, but they're certainly outweighed by the old.

This post is a late entry to Maxabella's Grateful Saturday, which I didn't get around to writing on the weekend.