Four mothers, ten children, two turtle doves, and a tiny beach house on a little island

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me, five lov-ely things –

1. Picnic dinners on the beach, probably my favourite part of the holiday. One of the mothers was Argentinian (we drank lots of maté together) and among other things she cooked this amazing vegetable bake inside a hollowed out pumpkin! Said pumpkin was served out of the back of the 4WD in the picture below. Everyone agreed to go vegetarian for the week on account of my daughter and I and then proceeded to completely show me up with their superior vegetarian cooking skills.

2. Something I love about Australia is the abundance of really great beaches. Even though we were there in school holidays we often had a beach entirely to ourselves. The children scampered about naked much of the time (is there anything cuter?) and on one evening we watched a gorgeous sunset with the silhouettes of our naked children in the foreground, jumping over small waves.

3. Showing the children pods of dolphins coming past us that were only a couple of metres from the shore.. and on one occasion a sweet little wobbygong shark that had come in close to see what we were about. The children also collected jellyfish eggs and then proved that it is possible to squabble over pretty much any limited resource, no matter how useless it is.

4. The contentedness of children who have been swimming and playing outdoors all day. The way Cormac fell asleep so willingly, Lauca not so much (eye roll). And then sneaking out after the children were asleep to lay on a blanket on the beach and watch shooting stars.

5. Lauca. Happily absorbed in play all day long with the other children and then sleeping all night without interruption curled up beside her new Best Friend.

(And five not so lovely things. Keepin’ it real for you).

1. No drinkable water at the beach house, well not if you discounted the water with the red larvae swimming merrily about in it. We had to bring all our own water and in the heat we went through supplies fast. Global warming, people, it isn’t going to be pretty.

2. Having to always dive for cover with the baby during the sunniest hours of the day. The sun has a serious bite to it, and when on the beach, Cormac and I were forced to frequently retreat to my sun tent, which he found terribly dull and which I didn’t much like either because it meant I missed out on all the lovely conversations the other mothers were having. And still the baby managed to get quite tanned.

3. Other people held the baby from time to time and the children all played patiently with him but that still left me with hours and hours of time occupying him, supervising him or lugging him about with me, and there is nothing heavier than a 10kg baby in your sling when you’re sweaty and trudging through sand.

4. Spending the week in a small beach house with so many others meant it was difficult to get time alone with your own children. That this was an inconvenience took me by surprise, who knew I wanted more time by myself with my children? But one of my favourite moments of the trip ended up being this particularly difficult afternoon when both children were coming undone simultaneously and I hauled them off to the bed with me to calm them down. We lay on the bed together and ended up cuddling and playing, and finally, laughing until we’d all cheered up.

5. The beach house was set up more for adult fishing parties than for mothers and children and the yard lacked shade and prickle-free grass. It feels very satisfying being all Steiner and having the children occupy themselves with little more than their imaginations but there was also plenty of time when we longed to park them in front of a set of plastic toys. Also, we totally under-budgeted our supply of chocolate for the adults.