It started like any other Monday at our Journey Jottings island office.
Phil, our Customer Service Manager, was making telephone calls to some of our 500 or so retailers across Australia to check stock levels of our Journey Jottings products … Updating records in the database, creating invoices and passing them onto to the packing section ready for dispatch.
I was responding to emails about our Newsletter that had been published over the weekend, and I was about to go to the warehouse to check on stock levels of our magnets and puzzle postcards that were due to be re-ordered.
Wagging Work
But… it was Phil’s birthday!
So… instead of leaving him to dream about where he’d rather be spending his birthday… as soon as the essentials were attended to it was…
Carpe Diem…
(seize the day)
We launched the tinny and headed across the bay 😉
Seize the Day
The beach is my haven between two worlds, and it was great to see this beach was waiting for us – deserted…
…except for an army of soldier crabs that greeted us along the shoreline.
Soldier Crabs
Scurrying away from our advances along the water’s edge…
As soon as we got too close and they were threatened by our invasion
They dug a hole in the sand, where they retreated underground to safety…
Until the danger of our marauding assault passed, and once again they’d re-emerge to continue their march.
Deserted Beach
The beach was just how I like it…
…empty
Except for the whistling kites circling overhead, a pair of turquoise kingfishers who shyly dashed out from the safety of the bush-land that backed the beach to scoop up morsels
…and a Kookaburra
Who I think was hoping to share the birthday tea.
Moreton Bay is a Marine Park just an hour from Brisbane’s CBD. There are numerous islands in the Bay, most surrounded by life-giving magical mangroves and wetlands, while the sea-grass meadows that grow on the Bay’s seabed are a haven for dugongs and turtles (one of which kept popping his head up for air just a short way from where we were sitting).
Carpe Diem
With the tide going out, it was time to re-launch the boat
Passing, on the way back, the inter-island passenger ferry, which was bringing home the city commuters.
Birthdays come but once a year, and unlike all the other commercial ‘Days’ to be celebrated, it really is ‘your’ day.
Have you wagged work on your birthday?
Or thought about it?
Do share, in the comments below –
Where did you go & what did you do?
What a gorgeous beach and those crab shots are amazing!
Empty beaches are my favourite!
And I find the crabs, being blue, so cute!
It is important to get one’s priorities right… a great afternoon (just don’t tell the boss)
Thanks 😉
Your secret is safe with me 😉
I’m surprised more companies don’t offer a day off to employees for their annual ‘special’ day…
Maybe we might have started something here?
The soldier crabs are simply amazing creatures…I saw them once in Narooma on my first trip in Australia, love how they look and their marching sound 😉 Beautiful photos!
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Amazing the way they appear in such a huge group, and their colour – blue!!!
Then as you say their clicking marching sound as they rampage up the water’s edge –
Can’t beat nature 😉
My thoughts BEFORE I read your “Wag your Birthday” post:
Familiarity breeds contempt! The more birthdays you have, the less they mean, especially if you have the funds to buy or pay for what you want, when you want, throughout the year. So there’s no longer the thrill of excitement of receiving some longed for gift, or being allowed to do something special – because I have the freedom buy or do, whatever/whenever I want. Birthday’s come and birthdays go, Life rolls on! Don’t relish them, but don’t dread them either.
My thoughts AFTER I read your “Wag your Birthday” post:
Well, that beach could inspire a Hermit! It actually gave me chills to look at those photo’s – and you can probably tell from above, that I’m a matter-of-fact type of girl!
You’ve planted a seed!
So maybe I do have the freedom to do something special. But how often do I take advantage of that? It’s time to Wag! It’s time to capture some of that carefree spirit from childhood, throw off the adult apathy, and like you say – seize the day!
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I understand your thinking exactly re: ‘familiarity breeds contempt’!
Like you I went through a bit of a ho-hum spell of ‘been there, done that’ when another birthday rolled around –
But possibly, all the more because, as you say you get to a point where if you really need something/want something you justify it and go out and get it there and then, I’m more suggesting here one simply does something ‘different’ – not expensive!
A bit like an ‘Artist’s date’, allowing one’s self to replenish the ‘well’ that gets drained by the mundane adult day-to-day 🙂
If your birthday was a declared public holiday, it’d force you to go out and find the magic! Wouldn’t it?
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And the beauty is, not every other person in the country would be off work too so, one can really enjoy a peaceful walk around the latest gallery exhibition, or as in this case an empty beach 😉
Yum I love the way this beach looks. All I need is a packed lunch and off I go.
Thanks for sharing.
And food always tastes soooooo much better not only in the outdoors, but down by the water 🙂
How delightful to have a beach all to yourselves. Well, except for the wildlife. And seeing all those crabs at once would be pretty wild for me. I make it a point to Never work on my birthday. Great beach post.
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I’m always happy to share my world with the wildlife ~
Like you, I get a real thrill from seeing animals in their native environment!
And great to hear you honour your birthday each year 🙂
I was always too much of a puritan to “wag work” (I think the equivalent expression in the U.S. is “to play hooky from work’) This is why I had to semi-retire from being a lawyer 7 years ago, so I could start my “reinvention” career as a travel blogger. Now, when I go somewhere nice, I’m “working”.
You’ve got me wondering now where ‘wagging’ comes from, but all I can come up with is that it’s an Australian colloquialism for playing truant or to skip class.
Maybe it’s inferring you’re dodging something by moving side to side??
Or doing something that makes you happy?? 😉
I live my life as Confucius says: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” but when you love what you do it requires even more discipline to down tools one day a year 🙂
My gosh! I’ve never seen anything quite like that army of soldier crabs. Pretty cool. I agree about birthdays — they are very special and we should absolutely seize the day! Happy (belated) Birthday to Phil!
Thanks (from Phil) for the birthday wishes 😉
It is wonderful to associate and attribute certain special outings or experiences to a special day –
Like Jay above I have ho-hummed through a few – But the fun of birthday memories only gets better!
No, I have never been self employed so have never wagged work. We have similar beach scenes around my home in N.Q. I remember scenes of hundreds of soldier crabs, but have not seen them for a while now. Your area looks gorgeous, and what a lovely way to spend a birthday. We have a tinny too 🙂
I love my tinny!!
Its great for hopping about through the waterways and across the shallows –
We just have the advantage here that we’re too far south for crocs… at the moment! 🙂
I never work on my birthday! I’ve had a few really special ones at the beach. Phil is a lucky man.
Let’s hope he reads that Billie!
The day is special before you begin, but somehow doing something (anything?) different on your birthday makes it even more memorable! 😀
Thanks for that Billie, I am a lucky man it’s true but life is what you make it. it’s very easy to get bogged down in the daily mundane chores of living and yet it’s really just a question of priorities, which we seem to have got just about right now, although there’s always room for a bit of fine tuning here and there along the way, take care
Phil
Wow! Those crabs are really something but I gotta tell ya I’d be running in the opposite direction! 😉
As a former school teacher, I always worked on my birthday and made a day of it with my students by bringing them treats for my birthday.
I’ll bet your students really looked forward to your birthday then!
And that sounds to me to be pretty special – which is my point – Making the day different 😀