The truth about mussels
Mood: Good
Listening to: Gray's Anatomy on TV in background
Monday, 10.02 pm
Happy Easter to one and all...hope that it was as good for you as it was for me.
I have just returned home after spending a few days at Waihi Beach, some 5 hours north of here (or more, depending on whether you take the "scenic" route). We went in convoy, Brent and our boys and me in our car, and Alan and Julie towing the boat with their ute. Left after work on Thursday, stopped for tea at the truckstop at Wairakei and arrived at the beach about 11.15 pm. At that point the last thing I felt like doing was making up beds but we couldn't get horizontal until I did, so off I went only to discover they were freshly made up with sheets and all so first I had to strip them, then make them. Sigh, who needs the gym? By this stage I was totally knackered and getting p'd off because I was the only person who seemed to be doing anything - and I still had to suggest somebody make a cup of tea while I put small to bed! Petty of me perhaps, but it was the start of a holiday and I wanted to blob. About 12.30 I managed to get horizontal and sleep was instant.
Came the dawn and things didn't get any happier. From some god-awful hour (just before six I think) there were clunking pipes, banging doors, male cheerfulness that only comes from anticpated fishing, small excited brother jabbering at sleep deprived teenage brother in the room next door, engines being tested, refusing to start and re-tried many times before the triumphant revving as they kicked into life...... then the husband stuck his smiling fizzgog round the door to say that they were off now...have a lie in love, see you later.
I fumed.
Then I got up and sorted breakfast, and took small down to the beach. That's when I started feeling more relaxed and holidayish. Sand between the toes does it every time and this is wonderful sand we're talking about. What a fabulous beach - gorgeous sand, flat beach, shells galore, clear warm water - and pipis in plain view as we walked along! I think Duncs and I spent most of the day either at the beach or on our way to or from. The house we stayed in is about 100m from the beach, just one street back, so easy! Aren't we spoilt? The weather was perfect with a capital P - and what hadn't I brought? Shorts, togs, and Duncan's jandals.
Friday that was, we had fish for tea, and mussels that the blokes took about two minutes flat to collect (and so close they didn't even get their hair wet!), YUM. The dairy on the corner has a takeaway place attached and for a mere seventy cents a piece they will batter and cook your own fish - and this had to be the nicest fish I have ever eaten. Scrum-diddly-dumptious.
Saturday was more of the same plus a little bit more. My beach wear was a pair of Brent's shorts that he didn't realise I'd pinched (he wore his togs or tatty old fishing gear all the time). Julie and I went off and had a look through a couple of open homes - found the ideal one for us to buy and set up as a homestay/B&B place; sleeps 16, right on the beach, huge decks front and back, renovated kitchen....only about $1.3m! Dreams are free, we'll keep taking Lotto tickets. Then we wandered around the Waihi Beach shops, I bought a pair of togs (bargain, $49 down from $99), a pair of boardies and a bucket and spade for Duncan, and Jules bought a number plate surround for Alan that said "If you can read this, I've lost the boat". Lol.
Tea that night was at the RSA, yummy meal but I could have done without going out - standing watching rugby is not my idea of fun, nor is waiting till half past eight for dinner...but the tea was nice.
Sunday, more beach. More lovely weather.
The Easter Bunny found us at Waihi, in the morning there were little foil wrapped eggs all over the ground floor. Alan thought he'd died and gone to heaven (he has a very sweet tooth) but managed to leave some for the kids. Mike went mad and got us all ENORMOUS eggs, think that's where all the absent board money has gone.
Lunch was very impressive: fish - marinated in lemon juice and coconut milk, crayfish, mussels and pipis, salad.... You'd pay big bucks for a feed like that in a restaurant! Then we had roast for tea complete with kumara, spuds, peas, courgettes, pumpkin, onion and the best damned gravy you've ever seen. In between times, there was shell collecting, mussel gathering, sandcastle making, kayaking, fishing, tennis, and reading on the deck. No wonder we all slept well! I think Mike managed a few runs over the track to the next bay too.
Monday, uhoh, have to come home. Well, Julie, Mike and I had to anyway because there's this thing called work we have to go to tomorrow. Alan and Brent have taken a few extra days off and of course the other two are on school holidays, so they get to continue in the aforementioned manner until Friday. Lucky lucky lucky them!
Now, harking back to the title, the truth about mussels is that they make you fart something wicked!!!! Forget about beans, forget eggs, cabbage, beer and all those well-known fart producers, mussels beat them hands down. I don't know whether I ate more than the others, or whether the boys just let rip all day out in the boat and thus were able to manage to hold their wind at home, but boy oh boy has it got me going! At least down on the beach you can blow to your heart's content but I've got to go to work tomorrow, god help the others!
So now you know. You have been warned.
On a different note entirely, I am reading "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown of "The DaVinci Code" fame. Boy it's good.
And now I'm going to bed to read another few chapters.
Happy Easter!
Jaybee
