Rach Odd Socks: Should have seen it coming.

As I am sure I mentioned at some point, I have been unable to access the Internet freely in my own home for some time due to my family and I using up the monthly limit a little too early. I'm back! I'm sure you probably guessed that when you read the first few words in this post. Or maybe even earlier when you saw the title. I'm impressed that you noticed at all.

How does it make you feel to know this post was written while I was sitting in McDonald's eating a McFlurry wondering why they insist on putting 'Mc' in front of McEverything. I came specifically to use their free McInternet so I could waste some time blogging, face booking, email checking and tweeting to my little hearts content. Internet and and ice cream after a lovely walk across Port Macquarie on a summer afternoon. If only I hadn't done something immensely stupid this afternoon during this adventure. I will get to it eventually. I will tell the story from the start. . . .

The idea came to me after a lazy day in which I did nothing but eat a massive bowl of Froot Loops (it was impressively massive) and read an awesome book. Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult. Yes, yes I am obsessed with this author. With good reason! Anyway my younger brother Matthew and I were sitting in my Dad's car waiting for him to return from his quick trip shopping. The big white van we sat in was parked in front of an adult gift shop. That sounds hilarious. The adult shop is across the road from a grocery store which my Dad was actually in. Had you going for a moment didn't I?

So Matt and I were sitting in the car, windows rolled down, sun warming our arms, lovely breeze blowing our hair, as we laughed at the bus of senior citizens being dropped off in front of the adult store. That place is the butt of jokes today-pun intended. I was laughing at the naughty Nana's when the idea came. I had a simple thought: "I wish I had the Internet so I could blog about this." Then I decided that when we got home I would take my laptop in my bag with my wallet and walk to McDonald's to steal their free Internet.

That is exactly what did as soon as we got back to Dad's house. On my walk over I couldn't help but notice a few things, one being that Port Macquarie is absolutely gorgeous in the summer, another being that I am in no way a city person. I went from streets where almost every house has flowers in front of them, to a path that winds along the beach then the Hastings River and right into town. In Sydney there are many streets that scarcely have a blade of grass before the homes let alone flowers. In fact, the most natural thing to admire is how the sun rises and reflects off the mirror plated office blocks. Houses here, however, have an abundance of flowers.

Sydney is awesome, don't get me wrong. I can't help that I grew up walking on the beach brushing sand from my eyes and windblown hair from my face so I could better see a blue sky rather than an Opera House or a sky scraper. I was just raised with the smell of see salt singing with the sun. Alliteration and imagery! I wonder how I went with my English exam? My point is I am from Regional Australia and am proud of it. Gotta love the coast, and the random painted rocks on the break wall.

Emily the Strange is most definitely a book worth reading.

I guess I prefer living in a place where you can walk from one end to the other without fear of getting knifed or something. I'm old fashioned like that.

I bet you're wondering when I get to the immensely stupid thing I did on my journey. All in good time, I still have some walking to tell you about, and some of my inner madness.

So I walked along the beach, along the break wall and right to Town Green. I took a couple of pictures of the War Memorial, freshly laden with flowers from remembrance day.

From there I had a choice. I could go into the street and get garlic bread from Eagle Boy's Pizza, or I could keep walking along the path to the wharf that always smells like fish. I got some garlic bread. It was delicious. I was walking along the road with my garlic bread when I passed the grocery store and the adult gift shop across the road where I originally started compiling my plan. Then something happened that happens to more people than they would like to admit: I had a mental argument with myself over nothing.

"If I had started walking there I would be eating a McFlurry and tweeting and face booking and blogging and emailing right now." I thought.

No you wouldn't stupid head, you wouldn't have George the net book with you or your wallet so that plan fails instantly. My subconscious mind countered.

"OK, OK you're right. Just saying would have been easier."

It would have but even if you did have your wallet and George you would have missed out on getting that freaking sweet garlic bread and you would not have thought of Sydney and Port Macquarie in a comparative way, much like that geography assignment of yours. . . .

"That's enough out of you subconscious!"

My madness aside, I continued to stroll and eat garlic bread. While my incredibly stupid mistake didn't occur just yet, I did get some lovely pictures.

After this lovely trip I made it to McDonald's, ordered my McFlurry, ate a McSpoonful of it to make sure it was McEdible, found a nice McTable and sat down. That sentence was fun. I got George the net book from my bag and flicked the on switch. . . .to no avail. It was a whole three seconds before I remembered running the battery down to nothing the other day and not charging it.

What an immensely stupid thing for me to do. I should have seen it coming. The plan was great wasn't it? A whole afternoon of McFlurry and McInternet and I didn't check the battery. I am a silly one. So I pulled out my notebook, which I had been too lazy to remove from my bag, and started writing a draft of this post. Now that I think about it, this is the first post I have ever written. The others had been typed straight away. Still, it would have been nice to have typed it on my own laptop rather than writing it in my unreadable scrawl then using my Dad's Internet later.