Family Holiday : Part 3 - Fuck the beach

Let me just start this post off by saying that I grew up in Lancelin.  Google it.  It's one of the windiest coastal towns IN THE WORLD.  I am accustomed to almost lifting off the ground when I go outdoors - even at my generous weightage - and to never ever leaving home in anything but a securely hair sprayed to buggery ponytail.  Because anything else is pointless, in the time it takes you to walk from your car to the door.  You don't do lightweight anything outdoors, because it may just become airborne in one of the constant gusts of wind.  Beautiful place, beautiful beaches - but serious, almost endless winds.

Yes, I grew up here - and pretty much never ever went to the beach

If you were not surrounded by gusts of Southerly winds by 10am each day, it was a bonus.  The place is so 'breezy' that it holds one of the (if not 'the') World's best windsurfing competitions.  People come from all over the world, thankfully, mostly bronzed Europeans, to stand on a board behind a little plastic sail, and get shot around the ocean by the sheer force of the wind.  Crazy, I know.  I don't get it either.

Anywho....just so you know, I'm not inexperienced with or adverse to a bit of a wind gust here and there.

So, back to the story at hand.  We're now all settled in.  The twins are thrilled with their room, because they've worked out that they can shake the shit out of their porta cots and it makes lots and lots of noise on the linoleum covered floors.  An added bonus is the fact that they can reach walls on both sides of their cots, and whack them for dear life, emitting a sort of SOS message with their constant, head thumping, headache inducing beat.  And I do mean constant.  They decided to forego their routine afternoon nap to keep this percussion performance up instead.  EVERY. FREAKING. DAY.

You can imagine what little cherub's they were by night time, having not slept at all during the day.

I know it's wrong, but why don't porta cots at least come with a few horizontal seat belts to keep kids in?  Or maybe some of those restraints they have in hospitals...

The beach, it did beckon.  And so off we went.  Because, when we go visit the #1 Grandparents in Lancelin, we don't really do the beach.  Or playgrounds.  Or anything really, except the verandah and the lawn - my kids don't do grass at home, being that we live in a townhouse with a paved courtyard, so having an extensive front and back lawn to run around on is hilarious - they tiptoe like they're walking on hot coals, with a perplexed and unsure frown on their faces.  Miss5 is now getting used to it - but it took her a while, so based on that logic, we have a couple more years of sitting on the verandah, wine in hand, cracking up laughing at the slow motion prowl the twins do whilst playing on the lawn.

So we paid good money to go do what we could've done for free in Lancelin.  We hit the sand, and the sand hit us - in the face.  The gale force (only a slight exaggeration) winds are blowing it all up into our faces.  Think mini chemical peel or hard core exfoliating treatment.

This is what it felt like the Sand Gods were doing to us

Once the kids work out how to play with their eyes closed against the sand storm, they're happy.  Except Mstr2, because he has an aversion to water, as previously mentioned in my Bali Christmas posts.  So he stands a few feet away from the shore line, screeching whenever the waves come towards him, and eyeing them with trepidation as they recede.  He's armed with a plastic spade and throws it at the waves occasionally - like a kind of warning to them that he is all bad-ass and will fight back if they come for him.

Miss2 is trying to body surf - before she can even swim, or float, or teach herself not to inhale while her face is under water.  She swallows a shitload of sea water.  Shitload being the scientific measurement I use for everything other than recipes.

Miss5 is deliriously happy out a bit deeper with me.  She wants to do a mermaid, but I have no idea what that is, so instead I just smile as if I do understand, while she jumps all over me, knocking me over at the precise moment another wave crests at face level, and smashes into me.  I swallow almost as much water as Miss2 (approximately 3/4 of a shitload).

Mstr2 wants to leave.   He's emitting a high pitched squeal to alert us to this fact.  Miss2 doesn't want to leave.  She emits a low and guttural throaty howl whenever we try and take her out of the water.  Miss5 just ignores us and keeps swimming towards Bali, or Canada, or New Zealand, or wherever is off in that direction (I was always crap at geography).

It takes over half an hour to calm Mstr2, and bribe Miss2 and Miss5 out of the water.  It's hot, it's windy, there's sand everywhere that sand could possibly go, and then some.  Our towels are useless, because they're being blown off the kids, and up into our faces - slapping at us for good measure.

We stop at the playground on the beach.  Which is a stupid thing, because it's not made for 2yr olds.  Mstr2 takes a dive between the steps.  Miss2 launches herself off the side of the thing.  Miss5 gets herself caught up rather high, at a point where neither #1 Hubby or I can reach her.  All the while, the fucking sand is still blowing in our faces, mouths, ears, eyes, and any other body part not already covered with sand.

As soon as we're up off the beach - the wind drops down.  Or at least it seems to.  I admit that it's probably all in my frazzled, frizzy, and sandy afro-esque hair covered head.  Whoever coined the phrase beach hair as a good thing that people aspire to, is a moron.  There's no such thing.  Even with lots of Conditioner, it takes forever to detangle Miss5's hair and mine.  I should've kept the fall-out to sell on Ebay to some follicularly challenged type. 

To think, some stylist was paid mega $$$ to create this hairdo, when all they had to do to get this look, is send the model to a windy beach for an hour prior to stepping onto the runway.

Since our Chalet is right on the beach, the kids spend the rest of the bloody day pointing at the beach and demanding to go to the pool.  Stupidly, I persevere in trying to explain to a pair of 2 year olds that it is a beach, not a pool.  Not surprisingly, they ignore me and keep whining for the bloody pool.  At this point we cannot let them outside, or open the front blinds, without the promise of going to the pool.

We are now prisoners in our lovely beach front Chalet.  Minus a few layers of skin from the sandblasting.  Minus a few thousand strands of hair from the beach hair phenomenon, courtesy of the wind, sand and salty sea water giving us knotted messes to rival dreadlocks.  Oh and we're windburnt.  All of us.  The kids from beneath full length rash vests.

And this is all a stark reminder why we don't really do the beach when we go to Lancelin to visit the #1 Grandparents.  Beach?  Fuck the beach....

Tomorrow's instalment, Family Holiday : Part 4 - Demon Beach Shade from hell