Long Hot Summer
Posted
January 28, 2009 at
6:47 pm by
Trish
As I sit and type this at 10.30am, it’s nearing thirty degrees. When an Australian says “thirty degrees” they mean “celcius” or “bloody hot for so early in the day.” Our school year begins in February and ends right before Christmas, giving families about six weeks of summer holidays at the beach where we can all work on our melanomas. Mine are coming along quite nicely, thanks.
As a teenager, I read enough of my next door neighbour’s Sweet Valley High books to learn that American kids often spent their summer vacations away at Camp. ‘Camp’ sounded like a magical place, filled with awesome activities like ‘hiking’ and ‘gridiron’ and pre-pubescent boys with long hair and bell-bottomed jeans. And that ‘Camp’ lasted weeks and weeks at a time, so long in fact that you actually came to miss your parents. Wow.
School starts on February 2nd and I can confidently tell you that my children have spent these past few weeks of summer not missing me so much as wishing I was not around. I have taken a break from the corporate ladder just long enough to become a problem to my children. They are sick to death of me. I’m everywhere - driving them to the Mall, taking them to the pool, chaperoning them on camping trips to the beach and organising for their friends to come over and play for hours on end. I just wont leave them alone. Every time they come into the kitchen, I’m already there, preparing cold drinks or cutting up watermelon. They go into the lounge to chill out, and I’m arranging a new selection of DVDs I’ve just rented for them at the local video library. They go out in the backyard to muck around with the garden hose and sprinklers, and I’m hanging their wet swimsuits and beach towels on the line. I’m everywhere! I’m totally in the way! I’m not giving them a moment of peace!
The kids are going to be really, really glad when they can go back to school and they can get out of my face. And next Christmas holidays, I’ll be expecting both of them to beg me to send them to Camp, or its Australian equivalent, so they can enjoy some parent-free time for once.
Tags: camp, summer-vacation |
4 Responses to “Long Hot Summer”
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1. Kymberly
January 28, 2009 @ 7:02 pm
I like your style! Excellent plan.
2. mully
January 28, 2009 @ 8:35 pm
I have several Ozzie friends as well as British friends. We have to remind each other to do the conversion when we talk about temperatures. LOL..as well as many word differences..i.e. “lounge” = living room.
Took me awhile, but I think I finally got it mastered!
3. Sophie
January 29, 2009 @ 3:41 am
As a fellow Australian, I too dreamt of holidays at camp. I also dreamt of looking like either Jessica or Elizabeth from Sweet Valley High, alas as a brunette with brown eyes I wasn’t close. But I do know that in a few years, my daughter will surely regret my summer holiday omnipresence…congrats I say, to surviving the 7 weeks.
4. Rita
January 29, 2009 @ 11:45 am
The thing about camp is that it’s so damn expensive! I’d love to be able to send the kids off for a few weeks (I find that we do all appreciate each other more when there’s a small absence). But, we can’t afford it. Either those Sweet Valley High kids were rich or they were… fictional?
We get three month’s break here over the summer. School usually lets out the first week of June and the kids go back the day after Labor Day (so, the first Tuesday in September). It’s a looooong break and we do get sick of each other after twelve weeks together. But, hey, that’s what memories are made of, right?