Mike's birthday adventure

Hello, everyone. It's Mike's birthday, today. I gave him a birthday card that I made yesterday. He likes it. It was fun! It was made by scissors, glue and coloured pencils. I remembered myself doing similar things at kindergarten. lol

Birthday card for Mike

On his birthdays we go to somewhere he would like to go. It's usually a coast. This year he decided to go to Botany Bay after seeing the photographs, which look exotic and gorgeous. One concern was that whether pearl, the whippet could be alright, because she usually has motion sickness. But we have trained her, and she got used to travel to the nearest coast, about 10 minutes. drive from our house. Botany Bay is about 30 minutes drive, so we weren't sure if she could make it. We made plan B and plan C, just in case. This is how she traveled.

To start with, she was sitting on my lap, but decided to stand up later on. 

There was a very short tunnel, about 30 meters, where she started to panic, but she held on, and she finally made a whole journey. Hooray!

Mike stopped the car at Palm Bay. I looked around to see where the palms were, but couldn't find any. It was overcasting and a bit windy. You can see how this cliff was formed. It is mostly chalk. About 60cm deep from surface, there is loam. It must be very well-drained soil.

A good place to learn about strata

Lots of yellow flowers

We walked on the top of this chalk cliff. There are no traffic, and peaceful. We walked about 15 minutes on this path. We peeked from the top of the cliff. There was quiet and peaceful beach underneath. Botany Bay is ahead.

Mike wondered it was a nudist beach. I assure you it wasn't.

We finally reached Botany Bay. But unfortunately dogs were not allowed in summer. Sun appeared from the cloud, and it became warmer. Can you see the sailing boat? It looked like a Narnian boat!  

Botany Bay

Botany Bay from the other side

 Tide was out, and there were lots of seaweed. It is very shallow beach. We rested a bit, and decided to return to the car along the beach. We saw a steep path down just before we got to Botany Bay, so we climbed down there. I went down first. Second Topaz, Next Pearl. Mike came down last. We were all alright.

Midori is a scout. ' OK, guys, it's all safe here!'

We walked back on the sandy beach. Topaz rolled on stinky seaweed twice. I almost wept.

Lots of small chalk rocks had fallen from the cliff surface to the ground. Apparently one of the children decided to introduce her family to the world. It says 'Me, size 2, Mum size 6, DaD size 9'.

Sweet graffiti

After we came home, we had lunch. Mike wanted to have his birthday cake. If he had married a mumsy lady, a beautiful cake would appear on the table, but I could only produce a wacky birthday card. So we bought chocolate mousse. Voila, here is his birthday sweet.

Mike's birthday chocolate mousse

Dogs were exhausted. They went to sleep. After a rest, we went to town to find  tongs for glazing. We thought we could improvise with kitchen or BBQ tongs. We wanted a cheap one. So we fist visited Poundland and then Wilkinson. There was no suitable ones in either shops. So we almost gave up, but I thought we should try Fenwick because they always have a good selection of kitchen tools although they are not usually cheap. They only had good stainless steel ones with good price tags. But I found these, instead.

Wenlock mug

Olympics mug

They were also clearance. They were about 70% off. Mike picked the Wenlock mug for £ 1.20. He said he would use it at the office. I chose the London 2012 for £1.50. They are bargains! We were pleased.

We went to Waitrose to get something for dinner. While Mike was queuing at the till, I checked the BBQ corner. There was a cheap BBQ set at a half price. We were most pleased!

After a dinner, Mike altered the tongs so that they could be used for glazing. He glazed pots. We will fire them tomorrow.