Beaches are boring. Not for the first hour. Maybe two. The first hour is fun!
I can do geology and rock smashing and pond poking.
Two hours, maybe, with some walking.
Three hours, and I get a little tired. I want a cup of tea. I need to pee. There is a lot of water coming at me. In waves.
Then there is wind. The sun is out and it is hot. The sun has gone in and it is cold. The weather. It is oppressing me. We could do other stuff. I am bored and pissed off and need to pee and I want to go home and drink a cup of tea.
Then I have to fight with myself. I am horrible. I am miserable and selfish and mean spirited. Surely I cannot begrudge my poor children what they might reflect in years to come makes for a happy holiday? The only happy holiday they ever ever got with mummy and daddy! (By the way, where is daddy? Is he at the cottage sending emails? Shut up about that. Horrible unkind cruel wife-type woman.)
Godhelpme. I have been here four hours.
Right. Well that is proof. I can repress it no longer. I knew this would come. The knowledge that I actually enjoyed being up here with the ruddy weird family and the windswept land. And we had to give up the trips to Edinburgh, Belsay, the dragon heads at Wallington Hall, the visit across the moors to the elderly aunt, the ritual crawl through the hypocaust at Corstopitum, the trek up to Housesteads, the journey down to Blyth - all so we could come to the beach and dig holes. This is evidence that we shouldn't be leaving tomorrow at all, homewardbound for Buckinghamshire. We should be in residence for longer. Somewhere close to a beach. With mobile phone access. Then I could tip the little grits out onto the beach, supply the phone, and run off, pee, and drink tea.
Except life never works out the way that is satisfying. We have to go home. Then we all get split up again. Dig must go to Hong Kong. Shark has a sailing thing going on somewhere. Tiger is heartbroken for a horse, and Squirrel probably wants to go to Suffolk because she hears tellings of fairy dust washing down from the trees. Me, I will kick my self-pitying arse about the house and move the furniture. Then there is other stuff that upsets and offends and outrages me and scares me and provides very little in the way of pleasure or reward. I must do that stuff too. We cannot live life like we are on holiday for ever. Although I will plot for it.
Anyway, here is today, the last day, when we visit cousins who breathe horses, stare into rock pools, make castles, dig holes in the sand, eat pizza takeaway, and pack up the car. To go home.
