Categories: family
Date: 25 September 2008 11:19:40
We may live by the sea but this summer I have totally failed to take the kids to the beach due the the lack of nice weather usually associated with the aforementioned season. Oh, and mummy's laziness.
However, visits to grandparents on the IOW every spring and autumn throughout my own childhood always involved building sandcastles on wet and windy deserted beaches. So I felt in necessary to subject my own offspring to the same. Oddly it didn't rain all week. So the IOW beach experience wasn't wholly similar to that experienced some 25 years ago. But I suspect that that was actually a good thing.
While I spent a couple of hours ensuring Daughter didn't eat too much of the sand, Mr Standard concentrated his efforts on passing on all his sandcastle-building wisdom to Son. Conditions were perfect. The sand was slightly damp and the tide was coming in. I'd forgotten the bucket and spade, but an empty lunchbox proved an adequate alternative and soon low rectangular castles were being formed along the shore.
Mr Standard decided to show Son how to build close to the incoming tide and wait a few minutes to watch them be washed away.
Then Son got impatient with the "waiting" bit of the game so Mr Standard started building the sandcastles as the tide retreated so that as it washed in again the towers were immediately knocked down.
And then Son got brave and started to help his daddy, running back and forwards building castles rhythmically with the ebb and flow of the tide.
And then, while running from the tide, Son tripped. He fell face down in the sand. And the tide washed full over him.
And I was extremely glad that I had remembered to take a full change of clothes with us that day.