Christmas was at our place this year. We had 16 people, and since it was a warm day, we had ten people sitting at our table inside and six outside with wide open doors. A sea breeze blowing through the courtyard and an umbrella kept things pleasant in the 30C heat. We were responsible for cooking the turkey, the ham and the potatoes. I had a 6.5kg turkey which I calculated should have taken 3.5 hours to cook, so I allowed four hours for it to cook. The recipe for the steam oven that I was using was for a 4 kg bird, which was supposed to take 2.5 hours. I put it on at 8 am and headed out for church at 9 am. When we got back just after 10 am the probe said it was almost cooked. We were unsure whether this was because we hadn’t put the probe into the right part of the bird, but when we pulled it out, the juices looked clear. This was only 2.5 hours after we’d put it into the oven, so a major catering crisis with dinner scheduled for 1 pm. We let it rest for 30 mins, carved it and put it in the serving dish covered with foil. A light reheat in the steam oven just before serving worked a treat, and we had perfectly cooked moist turkey. So, in the end, a win. Hubby has taken notes on the amounts of food we ate for 16 people, and how long the turkey took so we should be all set the next time it’s our turn to host.

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We’re down at my parents’ place at Point Lonsdale now. We had a beach day on Tuesday (36.5C), and I went to the beach with my daughter. We were walking up the sound dune when many people started passing us the other way. One kind lady told us before we’d reached the top that the beach had been closed due to an incident. Two people had been swept 200m off the point at the lighthouse, and the lifesavers had to shut the beach so they could go and rescue them. We headed back down to the beach at the pier on the bay side of the lighthouse ( so not on the surf beach). While there, the Westpac rescue helicopter flew overhead towards the back beach to assist the rescue.

High tide and the waves and undertow made swimming a bit crazy, but I went up the beach where there weren’t as many rocks and managed a refreshing dip. One bigger shore wave did tip me onto my backside, but it was fun, not scary. I had to rescue one person’s towel carried out to sea by a rogue wave while they were out swimming. He did not find it that fun and was having a big whinge at his parents as they left the beach.

Walking home, we had the interesting experience of being rained on by a cloud that didn’t look big enough to even have rain in it. Most of the sky was blue, and the sun was still shining on us, but big fat drops of water were falling from this tiny, fluffy cloud. It followed us most of the way home.

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The weather changed the next day, with rain and a substantial temperature drop, so we went and saw Avatar (enjoyable). The weather has stayed fairly cool. We popped down to see the finishers of the 3.8km RipView Classic Swim yesterday. The only time I’ve done the 1.4km Ripview swim, I got seasick, so I haven’t chanced it again. Our nephew was swimming this year in the 3.8km, and the conditions weren’t too bad, choppy but not rough. They had the benefit of the tide going out for the first section of the longer race, but then you turn to follow the curve of the bay, and they were swimming into a headwind.

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It’s been a good start to our break. I’ve managed a couple of runs and hope to do my longest run ever on Saturday (24-25km) in preparation for the Two Bays race later in January. The weather looks to be heating up again so hopefully, there are also a few more beach days in my near future.