Today at the seaside

(can anyone detect a bit of a running theme here?)

. . . I saw a pink and white galah fly into the local primary school playground. It screeched, landed, and immediately drew a crowd of little tackers to check it out. Moments later the JP teacher was calling out "leave it al-own, kids leave it al-own", follwed by "it must be very frightened, don't get too close", while Mr Galah strutted around for a while with his crest fanned out, looking around like he was the school landlord or something. I dawdled around the perimeter for a bit because I love watching animals in any setting, but refrained from actually stopping outside the playground fence at lunch break because I don't want to be mistaken for a creepy molesterer. So I don't know what it did after that. Nice little reminder about empathy from the teacher for the kiddies though, I thought.

and then . . . looking out the window later I thought I was seeing a couple of ususal swimmers who do laps of the beach, and sometimes wear black wetsuits. Then I wonderd why they kept disappearing under swell for more than a few seconds. Then I saw a fin loop out of the water in a classic dolphiny manner. And goodness me if there weren't about six of them making their way across the beach between the heads. I reckon only about 10 metres behind the line of surfers. I was a bit paralysed to know whether to try to run down the beach for a better look, or try to find where the video camera was hidden, to capture it. It was only a couple of minutes show in the end, but I was sqeaking with excitment up in my little fishbowl flat.