life's a beach
Sunday, September 22nd, 2019 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amovingtargetI managed to get my toes in some sand for the first time in years, this summer.
We don't usually go anywhere in the summer holidays, because Mum's been going off to India for years, but then one breakfast Pops was like hey we're going to the beach tomorrow.
I can't say I was all that pleased to begin with because, for one, I don't like having things sprung on me at the last minute. But the thing that really bothered me was that… my dad and I aren't really close. We never really spend any one on one time together, so I was just wondering… what the hell am I going to do all day out of the house without even my niblings to have fun with, and distract me? Even the weather wasn't terrible enough to stop this happening.
It didn't start off too bad. I stuffed my bag with books and paper and pens -- even though I knew that I would probably be too self-conscious to use them -- and made sure I had my acustraps and some snacks, because long car rides are bad even with them sometimes, but they can be absolute hell without. And this was a long drive -- for people living on a small island, I guess -- of three hours to Weston-Super-Mare so I had to be prepared for a lot of discomfort.
And then we stopped off at a really cool farmshop on the way there. I wish we could have picked up a million cakes and coffees, but I was so spoiled for choice that I just couldn't pick anything. Handcrafted ceramics, and painted scarves, organic soaps… I wouldn't mind stopping by there again sometime. I did pick up a book that I fell in love with because of the maps, and I hope it might be inspiring in terms of world building.
The weather when we got to the beach was kind of nice, a bit cloudy, but nothing we couldn't really work with. It was certainly nice while we had fish and chips on the pier and I don't think we could have gotten any more beachy than that. My outlook for the day had gotten significantly better by that point. Pops and I had played a game of air hockey in the arcade -- I won, but I can't remember the score now -- which was awesome, and the server where we got our lunch was really nice and patient with us both being hard of hearing. Seagulls are fucking creepy though. A family sitting behind us left, and more than five seagulls immediately swooped on the table, fruitlessly looking for leftovers -- I was half convinced one of them was just waiting for the change to grab our fish and fly off with it. Behold, the face of evil.
We went for a walk on the beach next. In the hour or less it had taken us to wander around and eat, the tide had gone right out. I wanted to catch up to it, and I didn't much mind the walk, but it turns out that the beach proper ends quite close to where the tide had been when we arrived -- around half way down the pier -- and then it's mudflats, all the silt deposited by the rivers coming out here. I tried to cross them but they're pretty scary to walk on, and once I started feeling like I was going to slip and fall -- it was seriously slippy in some places -- or get sucked in and stuck, I gave up and went back to the sand. There wasn't any cool sea glass or shells because, I suppose, it was the wrong kind of beach, but at least my feet got a nice mud bath?
Finding these sand sculptures was a surprise too. I had no idea such things even existed. It was interesting to learn that they don't actually sculpt them like you might with clay (or sand, when you try and make your lowly sand castles, I guess) but they compress the sand into a block and then carve their sculpture out of it like stone. The detail on some of them was incredible.
There wasn't much more to the beach after that. We got some cinnamon sugar donuts, had a little ride on a ferris wheel, and then back to the car to eat and get away. The drive back wasn't nearly as good as the way there, but I did get a decent view of where the River Avon empties into the Bristol Channel, I believe? I noticed on the way to the beach that we were crossing a big river, so I checked on google maps, realised that the northbound journal would give me a view of the mouth and kept my eyes peeled accordingly. It was very cool, and strangely difficult to discern if I was looking at water? It might have been because of our speed and the sky being quite grey, but I kept wondering to myself if I was even looking at what I thought I was looking at! Nature is weird!
I got uncomfortably motion sick on the way back, and disproportionately afraid that my dad would fall asleep at the wheel -- we were both seriously tired -- but we made it back safely, and, all in all, I did end up having a surprisingly good time.
We don't usually go anywhere in the summer holidays, because Mum's been going off to India for years, but then one breakfast Pops was like hey we're going to the beach tomorrow.
I can't say I was all that pleased to begin with because, for one, I don't like having things sprung on me at the last minute. But the thing that really bothered me was that… my dad and I aren't really close. We never really spend any one on one time together, so I was just wondering… what the hell am I going to do all day out of the house without even my niblings to have fun with, and distract me? Even the weather wasn't terrible enough to stop this happening.
It didn't start off too bad. I stuffed my bag with books and paper and pens -- even though I knew that I would probably be too self-conscious to use them -- and made sure I had my acustraps and some snacks, because long car rides are bad even with them sometimes, but they can be absolute hell without. And this was a long drive -- for people living on a small island, I guess -- of three hours to Weston-Super-Mare so I had to be prepared for a lot of discomfort.
And then we stopped off at a really cool farmshop on the way there. I wish we could have picked up a million cakes and coffees, but I was so spoiled for choice that I just couldn't pick anything. Handcrafted ceramics, and painted scarves, organic soaps… I wouldn't mind stopping by there again sometime. I did pick up a book that I fell in love with because of the maps, and I hope it might be inspiring in terms of world building.
The weather when we got to the beach was kind of nice, a bit cloudy, but nothing we couldn't really work with. It was certainly nice while we had fish and chips on the pier and I don't think we could have gotten any more beachy than that. My outlook for the day had gotten significantly better by that point. Pops and I had played a game of air hockey in the arcade -- I won, but I can't remember the score now -- which was awesome, and the server where we got our lunch was really nice and patient with us both being hard of hearing. Seagulls are fucking creepy though. A family sitting behind us left, and more than five seagulls immediately swooped on the table, fruitlessly looking for leftovers -- I was half convinced one of them was just waiting for the change to grab our fish and fly off with it. Behold, the face of evil.
We went for a walk on the beach next. In the hour or less it had taken us to wander around and eat, the tide had gone right out. I wanted to catch up to it, and I didn't much mind the walk, but it turns out that the beach proper ends quite close to where the tide had been when we arrived -- around half way down the pier -- and then it's mudflats, all the silt deposited by the rivers coming out here. I tried to cross them but they're pretty scary to walk on, and once I started feeling like I was going to slip and fall -- it was seriously slippy in some places -- or get sucked in and stuck, I gave up and went back to the sand. There wasn't any cool sea glass or shells because, I suppose, it was the wrong kind of beach, but at least my feet got a nice mud bath?
Finding these sand sculptures was a surprise too. I had no idea such things even existed. It was interesting to learn that they don't actually sculpt them like you might with clay (or sand, when you try and make your lowly sand castles, I guess) but they compress the sand into a block and then carve their sculpture out of it like stone. The detail on some of them was incredible.
There wasn't much more to the beach after that. We got some cinnamon sugar donuts, had a little ride on a ferris wheel, and then back to the car to eat and get away. The drive back wasn't nearly as good as the way there, but I did get a decent view of where the River Avon empties into the Bristol Channel, I believe? I noticed on the way to the beach that we were crossing a big river, so I checked on google maps, realised that the northbound journal would give me a view of the mouth and kept my eyes peeled accordingly. It was very cool, and strangely difficult to discern if I was looking at water? It might have been because of our speed and the sky being quite grey, but I kept wondering to myself if I was even looking at what I thought I was looking at! Nature is weird!
I got uncomfortably motion sick on the way back, and disproportionately afraid that my dad would fall asleep at the wheel -- we were both seriously tired -- but we made it back safely, and, all in all, I did end up having a surprisingly good time.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-22 08:57 pm (UTC)Those sand sculptures are unbelievably cool! And I'm very glad your driver did not fall asleep at the wheel.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-23 05:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-24 01:26 am (UTC)I love shops like the one you listed - they're usually more tied to craft guilds or restaurants out here rather than specifically to farms, which tend to just carry produce - but it's a struggle every time not to buy armfuls of soaps and ceramic mugs I don't need.
Also I'm jealous because I haven't gone to the beach in years and I'm in serious withdrawal. I'm glad that your trip was pleasant, even with drive and family!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-24 06:31 am (UTC)YES. Walking around was a constant internal dialogue of do I need this? could I use this somehow? maybe I could buy Mum something? what would she like? maybe I could buy some fancy coffees for my sis-in-law?? what's the single best thing in this store???
I hope you get to go to the beach soon! I've been pining to go back to Cornwall since I was a youngling, maybe I'll take myself out there sometime next year -- a nice sandy beach :'D