1.  You Arrive And The Night Is Alive

2.   These Are The Days

3.   Dark, Divine Intervention 

I wanted to stay in bed. “Up,” said Son 2 aged 2. “Up,” said Son 1 aged 5. I consider anything after 7.30am a bonus. But the boys were crabby and cantankerous. Son 2, as usual, wanted breakfast, and then wanted to lie in front of the telly with his face on the floor. Son 1 wanted to fall out with everything.  The Boat, we felt, not liking the idea of a day at home with over-tired, horrible children just wanting to watch telly and sleep.  We packed up and had a text from friends saying they were taking their boat out with a barbie. So I defrosted some yellow-sticker burgers in their honour. The Man picked us up from the quayside in a dinghy. A beautiful day, with flat water, light winds, scores and scores of yachts, kayaks, cruisers, powerboats, racers, fishing boats… all out pootling.   We pootled off to Lighthouse Beach and anchored off it.  The mother arrived with two small girls in a powerboat, and moored against ours. Maybe I should learn about boats. She looked quite cool zooming up. The girls came aboard, and Mother zoomed off to get Father.

We went ashore in their boat. Lighthouse Beach is only accessible by water or a couple of sheer Amalfi-style zigzag paths.  The bay was busy, the beach less so.  Golden sand, turquoise water, great walls of cliffs with water dripping down them to form pirate caves.  Son 1 was in raptures, Son 2 wanted to stay close to me. Son 2 and I dug, Son 1 rolled around in the beach tent. Other families arrived. I went for a swim in the sea. It was heaven. The best one this year. I think. Can’t really remember and I haven’t got time to look back at this blog.  The water was, as usual, blood-thickeningly cold… but it was still, no current, no rocks, no wind.  I swam up and down, keeping an eye out to make sure all the boats heading for the beach had seen me. Son 1 came down to the shore so I went in. We played in some caves liberated by the outgoing tide… and then we went rockpooling on the ohter side of the beach.  The reason children can skit about on razor-sharp rocks is because they weigh nothing. For the more traditionally-built, like me, walking on upended layers of granite hurts.   Back with the others Son 2 changed into his tiger robe, lay face down on a yoga pillow I’d bought with us Just In Case, and went to sleep.

Son 1 was engrossed with the other children, so I got to wander along the shoreline in the low, September-solstice sunshine, picking at the shells and looking for a stone big enough to Bash A Fish with.  The sea hush-hushed in the background. And then suddenly the golden sunshine vanished and the sky was filled with low, dark clouds. We idly packed up and headed back to our boats. Son 1 was a nightmare all the way back. Crying because he’s tired.  It was gone nine by the time we got them to bed.  They will so not be able to get up tomorrow morning.

1.  Back to The Beach

2. Back in The Sea

3. Back to Nature

Flat water, boats pointing upriver, a little hazy mist with a sunshape seeping through. = The Boat.   We rang the friends with the 2.75 year old.  The Beach by the Lighthouse again. According to Little Friend’s Mum, this is called Conception Cove.  More to do with late-teen sex with rich girls arriving in Daddys’ borrowed power boats than anything mystical and fertility-related.  There were one or two boats there when we got there… and 16 when we left.  Sailboats and motor cruisers, fishing tubs like ours,  little plastic speedboats and big clanking yachts.  Son 2 aged 1 just wanted to get stuck into the sand.  Son 1 aged 4 and Little Friend fought with toy swords, explored, beat back the waves with seaweed sticks and ran round the beach tent when I said “Don’t go near that, I don’t want sand in my beer or in Son 2’s lunch.”  The Man lit the barbie.  I clunked into my usual routine of Son 2 maintenance.  Food.  Nappy. Sunsuit, suntan lotion.  Then attempting to get him to sleep.  He was hollering with fatigue.   I walked him and down the beach until he stopped crying.  I lay down in the tent with him and he started again. The friends took the big boys to play football further down the beach.  And Son 2 passed out.

I had lunch, and then Son 2 woke up again. I went back in the tent to try to get him to go back to sleep.  Son 1 came in.  Son 2 smiled at him and the battle was lost.  I gave him to The Man and went for a swim.  Sea cold, but not as bad as Tuesday.  And harder to swim too, because of the dinghy/kayak/rowboat activity.  Launches speeding in, speedboats anchoring, tenders leaving and arriving from everywhere.  I kept close to the rocks, figuring they’d all stay away, and swam out past the spur so I could see The Castle and the Big Yachts racing in the distance.  The sea was flat as a pool, and warm and turquoise.    With belches of diesel every now and again.    I don’t know if I want that wetsuit, I thought, this is great. But I need the sea goggles and the snorkel and the mask.  And swimming lessons so I can do crawl at sea.  I stayed in about twenty minutes, and then went back because I thought I should be playing with the children.  Son 1 was being buried by Little Friend.  He had LF’s mother’s shirt over his head.  “Where’s Son 1?” I asked. “We don’t know,” said LF’s mother.  Son 1 emerged. “Go for another swim Mummy, so we can play that again.”

We played Vanishing Boys with the tent.  Two boys in the tent. We zip up the front and say Abracadabra.  We unzip the front and the tent is empty.  And there are giggles and squeals from behind the tent, and sometimes little feet and toes still poking out the back zip.  We packed up and went for chug up one of the tributaries.  Heavenly.  Vivid, vibrant greens on the riverbanks, deep black greens in the water.  Sleek cormorants swimming and diving.  Son 2 wouldn’t sleep.  Son 1 and Little Friend ate any food going.  We had coffee, made on The Boat stove.  In a tree on the bank were eight or nine egrets, big bright white splodges against the green, perched near a heron, convenient for scale.  They flew away in a little flock.  When I came here seventeen years ago, I thought seeing a little egret was good luck, a sign I’d have a good day. Much later I realised they’re breeding here now because the planet is dying. Oops. Slight misreading of Mother Nature’s signals.