Random thoughts

Lazy Sundays- what bliss.. Snore your head off till mid afternoon, wake up, yawn, stretch luxuriously and have a prolonged Sunday brunch.. then settle down to a mild activity which doesn’t tax your muscles or brain cells too much – like reading a trashy paper or day dreaming, until you doze off yet again, finally waking up rejuvenated after a stressed out week. Unfortunately, my Sunday wasn’t quite like that. My hyper family and I optimistically planned to wake up before the crack of dawn, and drive down to the beach to greet the sun as it rose majestically out of the sea. Having decided this, we then proceeded to stay up till past three in the morning proposing and vetoing at least 45 randomly crazy “fun things” to do, ranging from driving out for ice cream and playing tag on the terrace, to rounding up all the strays in the area and taking them to the pound. Finally, after much ado, talk, hysterical giggling, a lot of singing and plenty of deliciously melted chocolate we turned in. The crack of dawn came and went , with one cousin trying vainly to wake us up, being the only signs of life in the house. An hour later, there was some stirring, grumbles, moans and occasional shrieks, all drowned by the hiss of the stove as the water for tea boiled away merrily. Umpteen cups of pick-me-ups later, we bundled into a couple of cars and headed off- with the sun well overhead..

Ah, the beach! The magical place where unending stretches of golden sand, the choppy waves of a mighty ocean, and the vast expanse of pale blue sky, all convene. Sounds idyllic?? Far from it. The sand is blistering hot, so that anyone who happens to step on it barefoot ends up looking like they’re performing some complicated war dance. .. it holds a motley crowd of objects – the unpleasant vastly outnumbering the pleasant….the water is no more pristine- you shriek with fright, thinking you’ve been attacked by a Portuguese man-o-war at the very least, and look down to find your leg swathed in a disintegrating plastic cover… You’re also in danger of being hit by a variety of balls, being followed around by strays and crows in search of scraps of food, being cut by a kite thread, and being besieged by an array of ‘sundal’ sellers and fortune tellers. My dad and I watched with big smirks, as the rest of the bunch tripped over themselves and spat out salty sea water, as an aunt and cousin were completely submerged, as drenched cell phones were salvaged and worried over, and as my brother dived in franticly after his ugly rubber slippers… The smirks grew considerably in size an hour later, as everyone sat scraping the sand off their well encrusted persons with disgruntled expressions. With well whetted appetites, we headed across the road to mash, and chomped and chewed steadily on their suitably named break-feasts – omlettes bursting with cheese and laces with spiced beef, soft and crumbly scrambled eggs, mouth watering golden-brown sausages, crisp fries with tangy sauce, hot toast butter and marmalade, honeyed pancakes with pineapples and mangoes, washed down with large mugs of piping hot coffee and hot chocolate. With satiated smiles plastered across our faces and clothes stretched tightly across considerably enlarged midriffs, we headed home and plonked straight into bed. J