Beach day

What to do on a beach.

Set up camp. Beach tent, blanket first. Towels and bags inside the tent. Buckets and spades ready. Sun hats on, suncream too. Urgh the stickiness of the suncream and the sand. Everyone agrees this is the worst but sunburn is worse still. In recent years we have rash vests as we are more sun aware. I have memories of being on a beach in the full midday sun, sparing amounts of factor twenty in the hope that genetics might fail and with enough will power I would get a tan. I never did. Now armed with all the knowledge of skin cancer, we are so much more careful with our precious skin. So rash vests, sun hats, factor 50 we ward off the sun’s power to harm us to be able to enjoy its warmth.

Some go to the sea. The tide is out. Lines of seaweed mark the shorelines progress. The bay holds the sea, calm. Boats and buoys float on the surface of the blue, like punctuation marks.After the initial chill, the sea holds you. Bobbing up and down. The stronger swimmers try to reach a rocky island -just out of reach. Others paddle and wade as the waves inch forward under the hidden moon’s guidance.

Others walk the edge of where the waves lap, encroaching back in on the beach. The tide has turned inwards. A glint of something interesting catches an eye. A bent silhouettes collect the treasure into a bucket. Sea glass, shells, pebbles. Heads down, two figures scan the shore, walking along the edge, collecting.

Further up the beach, where the wet sand meets the dry, a castle takes shape. Built with care, during the day, a moat, a mound and the castle a top. Tide edges closer threatening to wipe out the work and the build on soft sand foundations. Seaweed flag at top. Proud faces for a photo opportunity. Capture. How may hundreds of thousands have fallen to the encroaching tide? Childhood memories built at the same time as the sand castles.