Beach Balls
Not that you can get close enough to them, but I see these balls and I can imagine the smell of the plastic.
I don't think I've ever owned a beach ball, nor do I know anybody who owns a beach ball. My childhood was spent on Sellicks Beach chasing round manky tennis balls that we used for beach cricket (normal rules, esky lid wickets and full toss into the sea was six and out). Balls weren't a big part of my childhood. They were something the dog chewed up.
I don't like summer that much anyway - well not Australian Summers. We can't romanticise long evenings on balmy days, Pimms Number One Cup, cucumber sandwiches and picnics on soft green grass like the English.
Summer to me means burning the back of your legs on he vinyl car seats, waving away sticky flies, taking a damp towel to bed with you at night and reading a book lying on the bathroom floor in an attempt to keep cool. The latter tactic worked for the dog - why shouldn't it work for me?
Beach balls don't remind me of summer either - they remind me of Coca-Cola advertisments from the seventies and some picture-perfect life that we all allegedly aspire to but never appear to obtain.
Besides, these polyeurethane objects smell funny.
The only thing I ever owned that was made of this peculiarly smelling plastic was a blow up mattress, used in our water tank as a raft. The water tank, containing the water we drank and bathed in, was a great place to swim, well, that was once we cleared the top of algae and the odd dead magpie, six foot off the ground, it was deep enough to tread water and dive bomb into, but that was about it. The sides of the tank were like gravel, so you'd often come out of these swim sessions with road rash. The boys next door used to join us now and then for a swim. It was either swim in the tank or the dam - and everybody knew that you had to wade through a few meters of mud when you swam in the dam. It took ages to get off all the mud when you got home.
The joys of growing up in the country.
Currently suspended over a food court in the centre of Melbourne, these beach balls also remind me of visits to the Clark Rubber shop and an episode of Six Feet Under.
Just like the character about to meet her demise, we all need something to believe in - whether that is a perfect Summer filled with perfect looking friends tossing around a beach ball or the ultimate Rapture for which she is obviously ready - prepared with tips from RaptureReady.com.
It's amazing what you can see when you look up.
I don't think I've ever owned a beach ball, nor do I know anybody who owns a beach ball. My childhood was spent on Sellicks Beach chasing round manky tennis balls that we used for beach cricket (normal rules, esky lid wickets and full toss into the sea was six and out). Balls weren't a big part of my childhood. They were something the dog chewed up.
I don't like summer that much anyway - well not Australian Summers. We can't romanticise long evenings on balmy days, Pimms Number One Cup, cucumber sandwiches and picnics on soft green grass like the English.
Summer to me means burning the back of your legs on he vinyl car seats, waving away sticky flies, taking a damp towel to bed with you at night and reading a book lying on the bathroom floor in an attempt to keep cool. The latter tactic worked for the dog - why shouldn't it work for me?
Beach balls don't remind me of summer either - they remind me of Coca-Cola advertisments from the seventies and some picture-perfect life that we all allegedly aspire to but never appear to obtain.
Besides, these polyeurethane objects smell funny.
The only thing I ever owned that was made of this peculiarly smelling plastic was a blow up mattress, used in our water tank as a raft. The water tank, containing the water we drank and bathed in, was a great place to swim, well, that was once we cleared the top of algae and the odd dead magpie, six foot off the ground, it was deep enough to tread water and dive bomb into, but that was about it. The sides of the tank were like gravel, so you'd often come out of these swim sessions with road rash. The boys next door used to join us now and then for a swim. It was either swim in the tank or the dam - and everybody knew that you had to wade through a few meters of mud when you swam in the dam. It took ages to get off all the mud when you got home.
The joys of growing up in the country.
Currently suspended over a food court in the centre of Melbourne, these beach balls also remind me of visits to the Clark Rubber shop and an episode of Six Feet Under.
Just like the character about to meet her demise, we all need something to believe in - whether that is a perfect Summer filled with perfect looking friends tossing around a beach ball or the ultimate Rapture for which she is obviously ready - prepared with tips from RaptureReady.com.
It's amazing what you can see when you look up.
2 comments:
I didn't grow up in the country, but my childhood summer beach memories are as miserable as yours. Don't forget your parents peeling skin off your back and lying in bed in agony from sunburn! I hated the beach as a kid. And summer times in general were always hot, fly-blown and sweaty. Creative efforts by mums with damp cloths, fans and the garden sprinkler are noatch for the air con that is thankfully more common today!
Great post, gorgeous pic.
Oh - and you do know someone who owns a beach ball: moi. And yes I love to smell it. See my blog post about it called Pretty Plastic!
Mum always had a bottle of pink calamine lotion to gently dab on burned shoulders, noses, backs and legs.
However she was also pretty ahead of her time. Seeing that I wasn't a natural brownie like my brothers, she insisted I wear zinc cream on my face and a t-shirt if I intended to swim in the neighbour's pool the whole afternoon. I have a lot to thank her for!
As for swimming in your water supply - I guess a drop of urine and body oils didn't affect the hot cups of tea???
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