Greetings,

We've had my husband's sister staying with us this week - she lives on a mountain property near Eden (which is almost on the border between NSW and Victoria). Eden was once a whaling station but in these more enlightened times, it's turned its attention to the tourist dollar and is being promoted as the Sapphire Coast. It's quite a spectacular area - and still largely undeveloped, which is precisely what appeals to visitors who manage to find it. You can see a little of the area.

The south coast of NSW has hundreds of kilometres of these sandy beaches, rocky inlets and bays - and you'll have the place completely to yourself on many of them. 

When we were first married, we moved to a little coastal town called Kiama, which is famous for its blowhole.

What's that?

You don't know what a blowhole is? 

I know people from other countries tend to start nervously edging away when we use words like this ... but it's really a respectable, geological phenomenon ... really. Don't take my word for it then, take a quick look here. 

See?

Our first house was on a hill that overlooked the harbour (yes, it's only a very tiny harbour...), the blowhole and Bombo Beach. 

It was a fabulous to wake up every morning to views like these. But it was windy! We had an old weatherboard house which was lined with masonite sheets, and during storms we'd lie in bed and watch the walls move in and out with each gust of wind - just like having our very own haunted house!

When we were there the town only had around 5,000 people and was the "major" centre for the surrounding dairy farms - the people on these farms came in to do their banking, shop, visit the doctors, have babies ... Both our children were born in the little maternity hospital - there were three other babies born the first time I was there, but I had the undivided attention of the staff during my second trip - just me, my baby and the nurses rattling around in the place.

But times change - Kiama is very close to Wollongong (the major south coast city) and is now very touristy (as you can see from the photos) - lots of al fresco cafes along the main street, dozens of restaurants and every possible style of accommodation.

Sigh ... it's still lovely ... but I don't want to loose anyone of my happy memories of how it used to be.

... Did you spot the mistakes?

Well done! They don't call you Greased Lightning for nothing!

Some more synonyms - but with a twist. These words are all pairs of homophones (words that sound the same, but are spelt differently and have different meanings) or else very close to being homophones! Match each word below with its synonym from the list:

corporal, corporeal; plaintiff, plaintive; venal, venial; elicit, illicit; civility, servility

1. mercenary

2. courteous

3. physical

4. complainant

5. unlawful

6. bodily

7. evoke

8. subordination

9. melancholy

10.forgivable

Tarzan comes home from swinging in the trees and asks Jane, "What's for  dinner?"

Jane replies, "I haven't got anything ready yet..."  So Tarzan says he'll go out and rustle something up in the jungle.  He comes home a little while later with a monkey and a bird under his arms. 

To which Jane  exclaims, "Oh Tarzan, not finch and chimps again!"
 
Last week's quiz:

Choose a word from the list which is the synonym for each of the words below: 

 delay, stubborn, false, agreeable, wandering, near,  permissive, destitution, poisonous, nonchalant

1. apathetic NONCHALANT

2. indulgent PERMISSIVE

3. penury DESTITUTION

4. noxious POISONOUS

5. procrastinate DELAY

6. obdurate STUBBORN

7. nomadic WANDERING

8. imminent NEAR

9. spurious FALSE

10.harmonious AGREEABLE

Last week's word of the week (dwile flonking) wasn't just the result of a night of bad dreams, according to Deb:

Regards,

Jennifer

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