Sunday Scribblings "Indulgence"

G'Day,
I just got back from a weekend away in Sydney, indulging in the markets and big city offerings. Food, shopping, people watching etc. Then there is the money, you pay for absolutely everything in Sydney, everything. Especially everything to do with transport, from parking to using your own car and using public transport, is a bit of a shocker down there.
The Sunday Scribblings prompt for this week is "Indulgence".
Oh how we all indulge ourselves, don't we? I know I do, a dozen or more little ways each and every day. I choose to indulge others around me too.
No I am not going to talk about chocolate... He he.
My biggest and best loved indulgence is water. I love it, I love being in it, watching it, consuming it. And... all this on the driest continent on earth. I know you are thinking, oh no...here we go on another soap box lecture on water, saving and conservation....again, right?.
No , really, I am very naughty when it comes to water. I do lots of the wrong things and I know I should not be so extravagant and indulgent with water, but I am. I take longer showers than I should. I stand or sometimes even sit under the warm flowing water, wasting it just because I am so indulgent , long after I need to be there because it gives me such sensual pleasure. Water satisfies all my senses. Albeit somewhat guiltily.
I do consider myself a bit of a greenie when it comes to the environment and water is such a big important factor in that, especially in our country. But water.... my weakness and I can't get past that indulgence.
There are however things I do that are protective of our scant water source. I use less and less chemicals in my home to help protect our water from being so polluted. I try not to use so much water around the yard, which actually helps the plants that are there to toughen up, and if they don't, well they were probably not meant to be in that environment anyway and something else would have served their purpose better. When I was living in Junee I was very good at water harvesting for reuse in my yard. I even had a fish pond that operated within it's own little balanced ecosystem. Fishies, plants, bugs and all. I never needed to feed the fish in there because they didn't need it and they were healthy and doing well. I just had to change the water a couple of times a year. I had two 5000 gallon water tanks that I filled with water that was coming off my roof area and so I saved that from flowing down the drain for use in my garden. I also had collection containers in other places around the yard. One of the containers was a big plastic garbage bin that had manure in it, filled by drips off the roof of the chook yard when it rained, so I had my own ready made organic fertilizer.
I have recently bought myself an enviro ball. It is supposed to last for 3 years and you put it in your washing machine instead of using detergents that go into our waste water. I don't really know how it works but it has something to do with ionizing the water which makes the dirt come out. I have been using it for a month or so now and my clothes are coming out fine. Since it is supposed to last for 3 years I guess the initial cost will be well and truly offset by my not purchasing detergents.
Water though.
Can you imagine me, indulgently laying back in a warm bubble filled bathtub with perfumed candles burning, my little fan heater keeping me warm, a cup of tea and a good book or magazine in front of me. I do that. Oh yes.... beautiful.
Or sitting beside my dear old Murrumbidgee river, with all my senses tuned into the environment, collecting myself.
Or driving alongside a beautiful watercourse or the lakes on a winding mountain road, up in the snowys, (snowy mountains).
Or by the sea where I can keep one eye on the road and the other on the beautiful sights, sounds, colours and smells of the ocean.
Water my indulgence, Scorpio my star sign and a water sign.
BTW, on the weekend I went into the Sydney aquarium, another watery place. I totally encourage anyone who goes to Sydney to spend some of their money on an entry ticket and go in there and have a look. It is far and away the best aquarium I have ever seen. No I didn't have my camera. I had always wanted to have a look in there but never did before as the entry price made it too expensive to take the whole family to on our income when the kids were smaller. But it is really great. I could have spent much more time there enjoying the underwater tunnels with fish and sharks swimming all around me. Mesmerizing. The fish of all sorts, tropical coloured ones, sharks, rays, there were even two Dugongs in one of the displays, you could never see them up so close any other way than in one of those tunnels with them swimming over and around you. Beautiful transparent and translucent jelly fish and cuttlefish, moray eels, snakes, penguins, sea horses, rays, an octopus, even a few crocodiles, who were definitely outdone by the beauty of the other underwater inhabitants. I love the way they fly gracefully through the water like the underwater world's answer to birds, while we silly inadequate humans can only survive on the land.
Excellent.
We also had a ride on the big ferris wheel in Darling harbour at night, went to Bondi beach, ate out all meals, stayed in a motel. Saw a trannie in Oxford street, dressed in a pink leotard, high heels with a pink feather head dress. Oxford street is famous and a great place to people watch, he he. And I was reminded why it can be so bloody annoying trying to please all of my family at once and keep them happy, but that is another story. It was all good though.
Anyway... back to my indulgence.
Water.
The human body is made up mostly of water.
Life on earth could not survive without water.
A very tiny proportion of the earth's surface water is potable.
A tiny number of what lives beneath earth's waters is cataloged compared to what lives above the water.
You never miss what you have until it is gone.

Goodnight, I hope you all had a pleasant weekend.
Love Linda.