Boxing Day picnic

One of our family traditions is the Boxing Day picnic on the day after Christmas. We get together with Mum’s side of the family, at a venue where the kids can run around, where an approximation of cricket can be played, and where there is water suitable for swimming (where suitability is a function not just of water depth but also of the traditionally variable weather).

In recent years Snug Beach has been the venue of choice. It’s an unpreposessing spot, with its gently sloping beach and tiny waves, but it offers picnic tables, safe swimming, and is never very crowded. The food is simple: Christmas leftovers (although this year the curried eggs had to be made specially because they’d been omitted from their traditional place in the Christmas day menu) that are mostly shared … with the exception of the icing-encrusted corners of the Christmas cake, for which claims are staked and occasionally fought over!

This year the water temperature was actually quite mild, which made swimming (or paddling) an enjoyable exercise instead of an endurance test, but the air temperature was a bit cool and so some of the kids were a bit shivery when they came out. It was fun watching the triplets (now 3 and a half) enjoying the water, with D in particular getting very excited. He still needs to work on the finer points of water fighting, however, although we all agreed with him that pouring buckets of water over yourself is amusing.

There are some more photos here.

The photo below is of the four wise monkeys: See-no-evil, Hear-no-evil, Speak-no-evil … and Taste-no-evil.