Yesterday we drove back from an enjoyable week down in Busselton.

Its the 3rd time we have done the January Busso trip with our friends from here in Brighton and this year we finished up with 10 different families dotted around the SU campsite.

We began these camps a few years back with one simple specific purpose – that of helping foster a greater sense of community amongst those who live in this local area. When we go at Easter we do some more ‘Jesus focused’ stuff, but January has simply been a shared holiday.

This time round we had 4 families from here in Writtle St as well as others from around the suburb. It was great to get away with our neighbours and give them a chance to see some of West Oz – as most of them are from overseas or east. I think they had a blast.

However the increased numbers did mean that some smaller groups formed and people generally hung around only those they were familiar with – a bit of a shame in the overall scheme of things and perhaps a learning that if you want to help foster interaction then fewer people is better than more.

As well as 3 great surfs at Indijup Carpark – one of my favourite breaks – I managed to get thru nearly 4 books.

The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll is a Miles Franklin award winner and is a beautifully written story of life in the suburbs. Carroll really makes the ordinary every day life sparkle and his writing is superb. Top notch and well worth buying!

Then I moved onto The Children, another Aussie novel by Charlotte Wood. This story follows the interactions in a dysfunctional family when the dad falls off a ladder and enters a comma. It is valuable for the way the roving journalist sister who seems to love spending time in Iraq and other war torn countries is forced to interact with her siblings who don’t see the world thru her eyes. All in all a decent read but lacking a bit of biff.

I am almost finished Richard Flanagan’s Unknown Terrorist – a book dedicated to David Hicks – that looks at how a person can unknowingly be implicated in a terror plan and how the media can sabotage any chance of their redemption. The Hicks dedication at the start gave the game away and for Flanagan – whose Sound of One Hand Clapping is brilliant – I thought this one to be a tad disappointing.

On a different tack I have also been reading Brian McClarens latest Finding Our Way Again and for the most part finding it really valuable. It looks at the value we can find in a variety of Christian traditions and explores how we can ‘find our way’ by including these in our lives. Its one of the most enjoyable McClaren reads for me, but I find his attempts at inclusivism a bit off-putting and unnecessary.

Any with book reviews over here are some ‘highlights’ from the 8 or 9 days we were there…

Sam loves to dance and at the annual street festival he got out there to try and win a digital camera… He might not win but he makes us laugh.

Indijup carpark is one of the best right handers in WA and at 3-4 ft its just a nice manageable size on the mal. I paddled out on the first day and my leg rope snapped after 5 mins so it meant the rest of the time was spent trying very hard not to wipeout or get caught inside. There was one stuff up that resulted in a swim but it was a very nice few days there.

The SU campsite we stay at backs onto this beach and its beautiful. Our friends from overseas are always amazed that such beautiful beaches are so common here in Oz.

We are also getting prepared for our trip around Oz and this was another good workout for the Jayco. One of the things we love about it is that the beds are very comfortable and each morning we were battling to get out of bed before 8.30am – a rarity for me these days! I guess camping is always about compromise and this seems to be the best compromise between tents and caravans.

While we were away we had Australia Day and with a pretty patriotic crew it was well and truly celebrated. Lunch was a bacon egg and sausage fry up and the rest of the day was spent on the water swimming and skiing.

One of the beauties of being a bloke is that the world is your toilet – however as we discovered – if you wee too much and too often close to your camper then the smell is not pleasant… Won’t be doing that again!

The view from the camper window gives you an idea of how close we were to the beach – 50 metres or so. A great picture to wake up to!

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And I slot this one in for the colour of the water. Tell me that isn’t as nice as you have seen anywhere!

So… we’re back and into it…

Work started at 7 am this morning which was a bit hard to take, but we are now in countdown mode with only 11 weeks to go until April 20th which is when we drop everything and take off.

Looking forward to it!