beach life

hi there

yes indeed, look you see, another round of images from our time away a little while ago. as opposed to, i suppose, images from some time away that has yet to dawn. i mean i could do some sort of artist's impression of what that would be like, but as i took the proper, fancy digital camera away with us, it would be a shame to waste proper pictures, would it not.

it was to our great fortune that the weather forecasts were on the whole incorrect. the warlocks and charlatans of the weather bureaus had all prophesied rain. this water from the skies was, as it turned out, notable only through its absence, and i trust those that predicted it have subsequently been arrested, if not burned at the stake.

the good weather allowed us to do something that has been, for the most part of the lives of the 75% of my family that you actually all like, quite a rarity - wander a beach.

living mostly, if not extensively, in the inland empire of Johannesburg (i know my friend Jonathan wishes for me to refer to it as the Transvaal but that would upset some so i shall not) means that a coastal area is not someone one sees on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. well, not unless for some reason you went from there to a coastal region - Durban, perhaps, or maybe even Cape Town for the more cosmopolitan - on a daily weekly or monthly basis, i suppose. and some probably do. so let's move on.

i don't, for a rare change, recall all the facts and stats on the matter, but from what i do remember it is the case that in England you are never more than just slightly north of 70 miles away from the coast. there are plenty of rivers and that too, in particular of course the world celebrated Tees and all them other rivers that are not quite so good.

rivers, however, do not have sand. various areas of the coast do have sand, and such areas are colloquially but not absurdly referred to as "beaches". the 3/4 of my family that you all like rather enjoyed their experience on such a place. William even tried to make an indelible mark of evidence that he had been there.

are the beaches of Scarborough any good? well, we only went on the north bay one, and that was most smart. the south bay one looked really good too, although from what we observed from a slight distance suggested that it attracted the rather more common of tourist type to it. the more refined connoisseur, it seems, is compelled to rather take a residence up on the north bay.

what of the swimming? well, we didn't really. there was some minor dabbling of toes into the sea, but that was it. a few did go out, and as point of fact we saw one or two embark on an ambitious attempt to surf on the relatively agreeable waves. the last time i went to Scarborough was the 1980s, and then it would have been unthinkable that surfing would ever have been allowed.

no images of surfing for you, unless there's a dude in the distance that i am unaware of, but here comes the gang after some successful toe dabbling.

if you have noted, and been pleasantly surprised by, the fact that i am not present in any of these pictures, then i can assure you your pleasantness shall continue for the duration of it, for i do not feature in a single image here. well, maybe my shadow shall creep into one or two, but that's about it.

what would a visit to the beach be without some beach related fun and games? it would be a visit to the beach without beach related fun and games, i suppose. we did not take that course, however, as we purchased some most splendid items to have fun with, as James is showing off here.

well, attempted fun. the rain may well have stayed away, but the wind, alas, was an ever present. unless we wished to send off the frisbee to the very finest of the seven seas, we were perpetually throwing it against the wind, which affected the velocity and aerodynamics somewhat. the ball, at the least, was immense fun to throw and catch, with the vast space allowing for some long distance fancy stuff. it was in particular class when a dog caught the ball and ran off with it, but the lady custodian of the dog was kind enough to retrieve it and return it to us.

seaside commerce is notorious for exploiting tourist filth, and we were no exception. that frisbee cost me £1.99, whereas the ball cost me £1. this was after the lady in the shop attempted to charge me £1.99 for it and i pointed out to her the 99p price marked on it. i was in no mood to quarrel the cause of this extra 1p levelled against my account. 

another image of the family walking around the beach? surely.

the above was taken near a rather distinguished sequence of what i believe one calls "rock pools", as in they are pools on the coast made possible by a circular like enclave capturing the water of the sea and giving stark refusal to the tides when they request it back.

quite a few crabs take to life in these pools, and quite a few people take to collecting the crabs from these pools and storing them in buckets. why? not sure. perhaps it is to take them away and eat them, or maintain them as pets, or possibly just to release at a later stage. one rather enthusiastic gent, a complete stranger to us, explained with some excitement to my (considerably) better half that he had found a pool with absolutely masses of crabs in it, and he ran off to the shops of the coast to buy more buckets to store them in. good luck to that gent, i say; be free.

yikes i have put a lot of pictures here and i have just about burned through any text of consequence that i could add to them. apologies if it all goes a bit more sparse from here on out then.

if there's one thing we learned from our trip to the beach it was that the boys really, really love the beach. this is most useful information, and shall steer us on the direction of future breaks away. for all the wonderful and varied attractions on offer, it seems that they would be quite content to run around on the sands and by the sea for a few hours each day.

also, they rather liked digging down into the sands of the beach, to see what they may find.

as it turned out, what they found was more sand, but this did not dampen their enthusiasm for the task.

no. i know you hoped the answer to your question would be yes, but it is not. the boys did not even think to enquire as to if they might be able to dig a suitable size of hole for me to get into so that they may bury me in the sand. perhaps they suspected that i would refuse such an invitation anyway. perhaps next time.

another look at my intrepid family taking steps into the sea? surely.

what is, you may well ask, the state of seaweed and other such vegetation associated with saline loaded water of the coast of Scarborough? i don't really have anything to compare it to as such, but what we saw and experience was not, to me, a trouble some amount. the lack or abundance of it wasn't really part of our thinking, although William had great interest in what bits he found.

now that i think of it, looking at the above, my (considerably) better half suggested that the stark shiny white nature of her legs may well cause some blindness in those who see them. should this have affected you, and you've recovered and for some reason have returned here, well, i would say sorry but i don't see how it's my fault or problem.

as we have tried, for close to a decade now, to be good and decent parents, we have not - as you'd expect - allowed our offspring to bear witness to the sanity testing experience that is, or was, Baywatch. so it was something of a surprise when James wished to have pictures taken of him doing what can only be described as a classic, if not iconic, Hasselhoff pose.

perhaps he has discovered the magic of  the one they call The Hoff on that you tube thing, i don't know. what was the name of his character in the show again? Mitch or something, wasn't it? i never particularly cared for the show to be honest. although the Americans produced some fine TV shows in the 90s - well, X Files, that version of Star Wars where the new captain was bald and of course the brilliant Seinfeld - a lot of it had really crap music. Baywatch had the worst, in truth.

anyway, i pretty much think i've told you all there is to tell from an hour or so on the beach. oh yes, there shall indeed be further images of our time away, but for now i will leave you with another image of the substantial part of my family you all like at something of a distance, once again staring at the sea.

as 'tis friday, may i sign off by saying i hope you all have a fantastic weekend, and if you read this within moments of it being published, thank you for taking some time from a fantastic weekend to come and have a gander at this.

if you had tickets for the 4th day of the 4th Test, i would wager you now have ample time to peruse some of the other stuff i have put up here........................



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!