First Beach Attempt 2010

Saturday was beautiful and sunny, about 26 degrees and absolutely delightful when we went out for a bike ride.  I was talking to my friend Laila and heard that she had spent the day at Scheveningen where everyone was already swimming!  I couldn’t believe it, normally I wait until July before I head to the beach but if the Dutchies were braving the water, I sure as hell was going to as well.

That was it, I decided that on Sunday, I was going to the beach!

Not Scheveningen though, because it’s too mental, busy, hard to park and as I may have mentioned I don’t like crowds.  We have another beach that we like to go to which is south of us by about 45 minutes, it’s smaller and while it does still get quite crowded, at least the parking is nearby and free.  The water is also usually a bit warmer as it stays quite shallow for a while.

At 9am the sun was blazing in Rotterdam, my sidebar weather widget said it was going to be partly cloudy and 23…

I was going to the beach, and I wanted everyone to know!  Eat it suckers! I’m going swimming!!

Yeah… well, we did manage to beat the crowds.  That counts for something, right?   Not sure there ever would have been one though.

By the time we were halfway there the skies started to cloud over.  It was grey, and I suddenly wasn’t feeling like going to the beach.  I started dropping hints about turning around and going to the pool in Barendrecht for a swim instead but Xander wasn’t having any of it.  I wanted to go to the beach so he was damn well taking me to the beach.  Oh, and I could shut up and make the best of it while I was at it.   That was me told.

We set up our chairs on the beach and sat.

Sat a little more… and perhaps whined a bit about how cold it was.

I might have mentioned going to the pool once or twice more too.

Then I decided there was only one thing I could do, take photos.  Lots of photos. Thank god I remembered my trusty little point and shoot.

I tried to take some photos of us together at arms length. Which isn’t so easy when you have short little arms.

It didn’t go so well, but we had fun and like most things we do together it ended up with us being silly and laughing our asses off.

Well, hello Double Chins!  So nice of you to drop by…  Now would you kindly just fuck right off? Thanks!

Then this happened…

Oh dear, then it was ON!

I WIN.  There is no match for the Chub Face

After Xander got over being completely pwned by my mad face making skillz, we spent a while marveling at the massive difference in the size of our feet.  I tried not to think too much about the minimal difference in the size of our ankles… I failed.

I think right now he would want me to say something along the lines of “You know what they say about men with big feet”.  (Big shoes)

Then we stopped to ponder what is going on with my wonky toe.

That’s what we call it because for the last year and a half there’s been something wrong with it, but we don’t know what. It started with a pain that was making it really hard to walk for a while.  When I went to the doctor he told me I damaged a ligament and gave me a cortisone shot in the lower joint.  It felt a lot better for a while but after a few months he had to give me another shot.

Now it’s turning purple.  I don’t know why, it’s not a rash, it’s not rough or dry like it looks in the photo (I think that was because of walking in the sand), it’s just… purple.

I think one day I am going to wake up and find that it has fallen off. I’ll find it in the bed or perhaps Pixel will be running around with it in her mouth.  It won’t be good.  Hopefully it won’t affect my balance, I fall over enough as it is.

I was completely into the whole toe theory thing but you can see how much he cared.  You’d think he was bored or something.  Like I complain a lot.  Surely that can’t be it…

I should have tried to get him to juggle, that would have made for far more interesting photos, I think.  He did, however, proceed to break the rock into tiny pieces and tell me how strong he is.

Damn, his ego really DID take a beating in our little making faces scuffle…

Men.  I won’t tell him that it was just a big clump of hardened sand.  I’ll let him win this one.

So, yeah.  Our first trip to the beach wasn’t quite what we expected, but we still managed to have some fun and that’s all that really matters.  We’ll be back!!