Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Bathrobe Bliss
The long weekend just gone (here in Australia, at least) was to celebrate Queen Liz the Second's birthday. Lord knows the actual date the old chick was born, but we got this Monday off. Yeah, I want the land of Oz to be a republic and force the Women's Weekly to discuss any other Royal family but the Pommy one but like all decent Aussies, I'll never knock back a free holiday.

We were supposed to go camping at the attractively-named site 'Little Desert' national park which is near the just as attractively-named town of 'Nhill' (pronounced 'nil'). Unfortunately, the Melbourne party got an awful combination of gastro, colitis and coeliac complications and some of the Adelaide contingent got colds. The trip was cancelled, and I think that the folk in each city breathed a small sigh of relief that our 'tents' were now warm, solid homes with showers and had toilets that didn't need a 200m trek wearing a full outfit and carrying a torch, towel and bathroom bag to get to.

What I've since discovered is an old truth that has previously escaped me: bathrobes make great outfits. All day.
When there's no school bell, bus timetable or work deadline to meet, it's such bliss to wake up when one feels like it and just dag around the house in one's pyjamas. In fact I'm sure that the Queen would be doing just this on her real birthday. Pottering around on the computer, having that second or third Gaggia-machine coffee, sneaking a few squares of chocolate out of the fridge, reading the paper one section at a time and watching a few episodes of Survivor Fans V Favourites via DVD (because &^%$ing channel nine still hasn't played it here).




















Then, maybe, if one feels like it, venturing out to the shed/home gym for a run on the treadmill and a punch of the old mini tonsil and mega body punching bags, all to the sounds of an ancient Hoodoo Gurus or Madness's Greatest Hits CD. Then a shower by 5pm and straight into some warm trakky daks and ugg boots. Which, are essentially, another version of a bathrobe and pyjamas

Yep, it's nirvana:

1) Remain in pyjamas until 4pm workout;

2) then change into not-fit-to-be-viewed-by-innocent-members-of-the-public gym gear for 60 minutes; (old grey leggings with an ever-increasing hole in the crotch, white t-shirt now yellowed with age and with just 'IK' instead of 'nike' remaining, a sportsbra with as much engineering prowess and underwire as the Sydney Harbor bridge and sneakers that smell distinctly of parmesan cheese and bathroom mould).

3) Have a shower and slip into one's most elasticated and waistband forgiving trakkie daks and ugg boots.
Best camping trip ever.

4 comments:

River said...

Sounds so much nicer than sleeping in a tent and showering etc in a communal washhouse. Give me home comforts and tv any day.Don't get me wrong, I love the great outdoors, but it needs to stay..well...outdoors.

"Nature is lovely, but man, as a species, moved inside eventually, because Nature is also scratchy, bitey, stingy,scrapey, hot, cold, damp,sandy and hungry.
Nature can eat you.
Nature WANTS to eat you."

eleanor bloom said...

Yup. That's the way to camp. Especially in winter! (Although... it should be noted that the Whittaker's Ghana Dark chocolate does tend to melt a bit in summer too...)

Baino said...

A woman after my own soul! It poured here most of the weekend and two dressing gowns got a workout. I love the image of the queen plonking around in her rollers and a terry gown with the royal crest emblazened on the breast stuffing her face with "faive pinds" of chocolate! Sorry about the tummy bugs tho! And very disceplined to 'dress up' for the 4.00 workout . . the most exercise I had on Monday was . . .errr . . .walking to the fridge! *blush*

Colin Campbell said...

The great thing about staying home with my kids before they were established with school was being able to wear whatever I wanted. My Ugh Boots got very worn out. I never made any effort to turn out for trips to school.

I am lucky that I have a very relaxed work environment and can wear pretty much what I want.