SHAZNAY LEWIS (ALL SAINTS) (2017)
I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Baps] diary extract, 21 May 2017
HOMEGIRL HOUSE PARTY series (2017)
“Yesterday was a pretty good day for my body. A fixed eye, tonsa energy from the steak and wine and hardly any trouble from tummy. Tummy was pretty happy. The sun was shining (more of my medicine) and was warm enough to make a Brit hit the streets bare chested (erm, no, not me). For being two weeks off winter Melbourne could certainly not be sniffed at.
Winter is a funny business here. It’s short but long all at the same time, and the temperature of a British autumn. Australians start wearing woolie hats at around 15 degrees (ho, ho, ho – so naive!). The nights draw in, the days get colder and I wait for Christmas to come. Without fail it doesn’t come and then every year without fail I wonder why I didn’t book a toasty beach holiday to break up the long haul. Déjà vu this year for sure. Sick and broke.
I’ve talked about “beachfix” many times before – it really is my go-to when I need a reboot. Yes! I only moved 12,000 miles away from home to get more of the stuff! It’s my happy place and I don’t get there nearly enough. Admittedly an Australian beach is intimidating with its lurking hidden dangers under a cancerous sun, and so swimming in the sea is nothing like taking a dip in the warm dirty Med or the dagger cold waters of the British Channel Islands (I can still remember everyone else gaily splashing in to just a few degrees in the water off Herm in the middle of summer. Erm, no, not me…). No-one can deny the beauty of an Aussie beach though. It’s a national treasure taken completely for granted by the home grown.
Now that I can swim again I know I want to see even more of la plage. Bring me my mermaid tail at once! (I’ll have to get fitted for new grabby starfish.) So here my homegirl, the Patron All Saint of Bikini Midriff. It’s Shaznay Lewis. She take me to my beach.”