8:59pm
We are sitting on the beach awaiting darkness and the fireworks. This is a festival of some sort but when I inquired as to its reason, Robert shrugged and said, "Summer?" Which is a good enough reason for me. The whole family is here, including Nick and Arron. Everybody's feeling good tonight.
I rode a camel earlier. They took a lot of pictures. It amused everyone. The camel itself was quite smelly but otherwise a perfectly pleasant fellow. It was a short ride for four dollars, but Robert's dad seems to enjoy paying for things for me. I appreciate that and will have to be sure to let him know somehow.
A nice man (with kids) took a picture of us (Steve, Aileen, Robert and I) and said something about "a nice family". That made me giggle.
Robert is wearing his good clothes tonight. They are unsuitable for camel riding. Now he's holding his hand over my page to block the light from my writing. Sometimes he is such a boy. He's lucky he's so cute, I mean really.
One of the little girls who is playing with those ribbonsonsticks (wish I knew what they were called) has the same name as me and I instinctively start to turn every time her dad calls her.
Early this afternoon, I told Robert I was feeling good. He asked why.
Is there any point taking pictures of fireworks? Really. 9:13pm
9:47pm
I don't like asking questions here. Robert reckons there are a lot of stupid ones.
11:19pm
The fireworks made me think of daddy taking pictures and I wished I had a better camera. The other day I remembered something I wanted to be when I grow up and ever since then I've been pondering the possibility of going to uni to learn to be a photographer like my daddy.
At the beach I watched the faces of babies playing in the sand, little people amusing themselves for hours just by digging and filling a hole over and over. I started to think about the babies I would have someday. I will be paranoid with them in crowds like the one tonight, but I hope I will be able to watch them like I watched strangers children delighting in sand tonight.
The mother sitting beside us kept pointing out the redandgreen theme in the fireworks to her awed children; for Christmas, she said. It struck me as ludicrous. It does not seem like xmas sitting on a crowded beach watching kids run by in shorts. They lit the big Christmas tree in front of the Civic Centre. It looks funny the way people's houses look when they leave their lights up til July. Today Aileen suggested I stay for Christmas. Even if I didn't miss my family incredibly and Christmas wasn't the biggest event on both sides, I still have trouble conceiving Christmas without snow. It seems odd to me that I'm buying xmas presents in this weather. It seems like I'm one of those people who does their shopping months in advance. I wouldn't know how to teach my children Christmas in Australia. I think I will always live in snow, at least for the holidays.
The whole fireworks thing tonight made me reminiscent of Canada Day 1999. But that's probably just because the cover band was playing Ricky Martin. 11:36pm
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