Day 59. 111,460 words. Busy days. And I’m taking another swing at an all-day training session today so won’t have much of a chance to mess around with blog posts.

Today, Sunday the 7^th of January, we had a relaxing morning at home and some more of my obscure[1] relatives came around for a visit. These ones were on my mum’s side – her older sister, and a couple of my cousins, and one cousin’s daughter who I’m pretty sure was a toddler last time we saw her but who is now preparing to finish high school.

[1] Alright, they were actually just cousins of mine, but for me that’s obscure.

Yeah, I’m that uncle. Or in this case, cousin once removed[2]. The “oh my goodness, last time I saw you you were this big” one. Ah well, my cousin once removed was pretty cool about it. I swear, even while obnoxious teenagers are getting thicker and more depressing, the smart teenagers are getting brighter and more articulate and generally making me wonder if I wasn’t one of the former kind of teenagers when I was one.

[2] I’m pretty sure we sorted this out last time. First cousins are just first cousins. Your cousin’s kid is a cousin once removed (and you in turn are theirs). Your kid and your cousin’s kid are second cousins. Earlier, in Margaret river, Wump and Toop actually met up with a third cousin, specifically my dad’s cousin’s grandson. So there you go. I don’t think under this system it’s even possible to have a second cousin once or twice removed … but I suppose if Wump and my cousin’s kid are second cousins, and if my cousin’s kid had a kid, that kid would be my cousin twice removed and Wump’s second cousin once removed? Yeah, it all fits.

Really makes you think.

Oh well. In the afternoon we drove out to South Perth to hang out and have a little picnic with some friends and their daughter who’s about Toop’s age, so they could sit around in a playground together[3]. Vacations as a parent really are just a long sequence of travelling from playground to playground, interspersed with whining about how we never go to playgrounds.

[3] Today, as it happened, it was just me and Mrs. Hatboy and Toop, since Wump had opted to stay behind and hang out with her older cousins because they were heading back to Margaret River the next day. As if to illustrate this older-kid hero worship, I think our friend’s kid was not-so-secretly hoping Wump was going to come along to the playground and was disappointed to just get Toop, who was cool and all but really just another kid her age, and not an awesome seven-year-old. Wump, in turn, was happier hanging out with the awesome thirteen-year-olds – so much so that it trumped the lure of the playground.

Still, it was a fun day.