I can never really work out whether I like summer or not.

I hate the cold, so I find winter very hard. Summer is far nicer but it’s not all bliss either.

The weather is temperamental, with heat waves, and torrential rain, and tropical storms alone if you’re lucky to be out of the range of bushfires. There are the hordes of insects and leeches and snakes and spiders , which I don’t mind hanging around outside, but don’t like if they get into people’s houses, especially houses I am in. There’s the constant haranguing (mine, to the kids) about putting on sunscreen and hats and t-shirts that cover their shoulders, and fretting over who can’t really swim yet and whether that pool fence/fly screen/fridge door is shut properly.

There was a very high chance of rain today, with storms, and it looked like a good day to stay in, but I at least was pretty keen (ok, desperate) to get out of the house.

Today was a rare, free day. We hadn’t been to the beach yet this summer and there was nowhere else we really felt like going. I hung out two loads of laundry in the morning and the sun, which was very hot, amused itself with this little mind-game of hiding behind black, feral-looking, spitting clouds and then, as I was midway hauling everything under cover, popping out again.

This happened twice and was not fun.

After my husband and I ummed and ahhed for an hour or so we decided that going for a drive would be better than doing chores (and for me, slowly losing my mind) for the rest of the day.

If we ended up at the beach in torrential rain eating left-over Christmas chocolate in the car for lunch before driving the 40 mins home again we’d just have to sell it to the kids as an ‘adventure’.

But it was great, just cloudy and very windy. Only one child was annoyed that I didn’t bother packing swimmers. The maths wasn’t working in their favour for swimming (swimmers:non-swimmers and adults:children) and the conditions looked dicey.

There was a park near the beach. We bought fish and chips for lunch and ate there. Then we joined the two or three other groups on the almost-empty beach. The kids played in the sand near the edge and in the shallows, and found and rejected a lot of beer bottle tops with the metal detector one of them got for Christmas. We stopped to get frozen Cokes on the way home.

By the time we got back, it was almost dinner time and after that they played backyard cricket and shot baskets in our hoop in the driveway until dark.

Then it was inside for showers and baths, an episode of The Famous Five from a DVD, and now they’re tucked up in bed, pretty tired. Pretty simple. Pretty happy.

Summer is not always easy, except when it totally is. Love it.