Today we spent all day on the beach.
This was not the best of things for Louise and I, hating beaches and sunny weather as we do, but Molly thought it was fab.
For a few hours we sat sweating and feeling bloody uncomfortable whilst Molly danced around the beach having a great time. We sat and sweltered, we made sandcastles and sweltered, we walked down to the sea and sweltered, we went for walks and sweltered. Luckily on one of the walks we found a sheltered and shaded spot under the cliffs so we all decamped to there. it was a damn sight better for us all after this.
(Unfortunately by then the damage had been done. After spending ages making sure Molly had enough sun cream Louise managed to forget to put any on herself. Ouch).
Right by us was a little stream running from the cliffs down to the sea. The kids did exactly what I remember doing as a kid, making channels, digging out pools, damming the flow and just generally becoming sand structural engineers.
There were a load of kids involved but unfortunately there was one horrible, nasty little 8 year old there. She was the sort of child that you can instantly take a dislike to and you just know they're going to be trouble.
Hard faced, pouting expression and obviously used to getting their own way. Probably because mom and dad are typical Harbourne parents (or equivalent from wherever they come from) and like to let angelic little Tarquina do whatever the hell she wants because to discipline her infringes her human rights and limits her as a person. Or some similar bollocks.
And of course because all the other kids were playing so well together and making this huge interconnected series of channels and pools she decided to start causing trouble and breaking the others work.
Eventually things escalated as they always do when mardy kids are involved and the mardy girl and one of the boys started throwing sand at each other. Nothing too bad so we didn't get involved, although it seemed like it was going to get nasty when Tarquina picked up a rock but nothing came of that so we sat back and watched the cabaret unfold before us.
One thing led to another and the girl's mom appeared and squared up to the poor lad, asking him what he thought he was doing and why he'd been throwing rocks at her little girl.
Up to this point we'd just been interested observers but it was lovely to be able to pipe up and tell her that her darling little Tarquina had thrown the sand first and the only person who'd talked about throwing rocks was her.
The mom's face was a picture. She marched Tarquina off and we could hear her being told off for a good 10 minutes. And the lad - well he was good enough to say thank you.
The forces of right and justice win over Harbourne mom.
Yah!
After that the day just got better and better. We actually enjoyed the beach once we found the shade and relative cool of the cliffs. Molly loved being involved in the sand engineering and we had a great afternoon. Very relaxed now.
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