Diary of a Manic Mum Seaside escapades

Issue 60 September 2009

 Seaside escapades

 “Mum,we have to dig deep you know. If we keep going we’ll get to Austria, on the other side of the world.”

It was one of those gloriously sunny mornings that occasionally grace the summer months. The early rising sun resulted in early rising children requiring entertainment. Then inspiration struck: the beach! What a lovely way to spend a nice hot day. The children were all enthusiastic, and soon the entire party, laden with food, buckets and spades, set off on an hour’s drive to the nearest beach.

When we got there at last, the car park was filling up fast. Obviously we were not the only people who had come up with the brilliant idea of going to the seaside. We piled out and made our way to the sand, carrying various paraphernalia. Sobia was excited to see so much sand; she sat down immediately, with spade in hand and began construction. But as she continued to build, we deduced that the beach would be less busy further down. As we began to walk on, Sobia stood her ground with no intention of moving.

“Come on.” I encouraged, “We’re just going over there.” “No Mama, I’m building a castle!” was Sobia’s reply. “I see that, but if we go a bit further, there will be less people and even more sand.” She wasn’t convinced.The sand here was perfect. Verbal persuasion was not working, so I resorted to scooping up my now squalling three year old and racing after the others. She struggled all the way trying to get back to the sand.

The beach curved round and the next bay seemed to be almost deserted, pointing that out I encouraged everyone to keep walking, trying to maintain a firm grip on a still squirming Sobia who couldn’t understand why Mum was being such a sand snob. Finally we stopped at a quiet spot. In no time, the picnic rug and umbrellas went up; Sobia was released and, with the rest of the children, started earnestly playing with the sand. A few minutes later however, I looked up to find the picnic hamper had disappeared under a mound of sand. The duo responsible did not stop in their digging, but enthusiastically carried on pouring sand over our lunch. “Stop!” I said. “What are you doing?” There was a pause in the excavation, then Sobia said, “Mum we have to dig deep, you know.” Hiba piped up, “Yes if we keep going we’ll get to Austria, on the other side of the world.”

Having discouraged my keen miners (with appalling geography), and shaken off as much sand as possible from the food, I set the picnic out and looked up to try and locate the rest of the children. That was when I noticed a couple walking along the beach, then blinked. It looked as if they weren’t wearing any clothes! We were on the nudist beach! Nudging the husband, we started to speedily re-pack up the gritty picnic. Dad was rounding up the children trying to shoo them back down to the busier corner of the shore before they noticed anything was amiss. But it was too late. The girls were now standing up and pointing. And then loud enough for everyone to hear, Maria exclaimed, “Mum, those people there have not got any clothes on!” Hiba tutted loudly and in an echo of what her parents say to her, added “It’s very naughty to show everyone your bottom!” They were all now in spasms of giggles and trying to shush them,we attempted a speedy departure back to the other beach. This was too much for Sobia. She had just gotten underway with her sand building and Mum was now moving her again! Once again, the squirming child was carried away, protesting loudly.

Eventually only the promise of an ice-cream placated her;so a few minutes later we were walking along, ice-cream cones in hand and for once there was a blissful silence. That was short-lived, however. A fly started bothering Maria, trying to land on her ice-cream. She started waving her cone around in an attempt to get rid of it. One enthusiastic wave later, I heard a cry “MUM! My ice-cream has gone!” There she was with just her cone left, the ice-cream had disappeared. I looked around at the floor but there was no sign of it. By now, Maria was sobbing inconsolably. “Stop crying!” I roared, “We’ll get you another one.” I turned round and started walking back to the van, still baffled by the disappearing ice-cream, when I heard the giggles from the others erupting behind me, and then I felt something cold and wet dripping down my back. Yes the puzzle had been solved. A gently melting scoop of vanilla ice-cream was working its way through my headscarf! Oh, I do love to be beside the seaside.