This weekend, we went camping by the sea. It was a trip that we had been looking forward to for a long time – ever since last summer, really. Last July, when the Spouse was finishing his PhD, the kids and I caught a train and headed along the coast. Then, we’d only stayed one night – it was little Plum’s introduction to the tent – but it was wonderful. Ever since, we’ve been thinking about that wide, sandy beach and the green pathway you follow down through the trees. We found other campsites last summer, but this is the one we’ve been remembering through the winter. And now at last, it’s May and the weather is getting warm enough to think again about sleeping in a tent.
I excused myself from Sunday duties at church and we all caught that seaside train together. This time, we were a crowd. With the Spouse, we’re five and another couple with three kids arranged to join us at the campsite, too, bring our population up to a happy ten. The sun was still bright as we set up our tents and cooked sausages together over a fire, and it lingered long enough to give us time for a good ramble on the beach before getting the kids to bed.
Saturday was a perfect day for walking so we followed the beach as far as we could. Far away to the left, the shore turned rocky, and we wondered if we might find some good rock pools to explore. Blue soon filled his pockets and mine with broken seashells and the remains of small crabs, then started an epic Harry Potter spinoff game with one of the other boys and tore along the beach, casting spells. Bean walked on ahead, singing into the wind and looking for beautiful stones to collect. Throughout the morning, the kids grouped together and drifted apart as good friends do. Plum spent much of the walk in a pack on my back, but from time to time, he, too, took his place among the others, searching for treasure on the sand. The sea was fantastically blue, and above the waves, gannets hovered like white caps tossed up into the sky, then crashed fast and deep down into the waves, looking for fish. We stopped for lunch in the sand dunes surrounded by spikes of pale grasses and skylarks surprised us, rising up singing.
But we were less happily surprised by the shape of the land. The rocky shore turned out to be on the far side of deep river, which cut down through the dunes, leaving the rock pools out of reach. The kids refused to walk back the way we came. But I supposed that was wise, after all, because it prompted us to find a new way home. We cut across a great sand flat where the kids found rocks to climb and the great sandy prints of horseshoes but no one believed they were left by seahorses.
On Sunday morning, we woke to a grey and blustery day. It had rained in the night and there were broken poles on some of the tents around the field. Pentecost and too much wind for a fire. Instead, we lit the camping stoves and made a pot of coffee and another of hot chocolate for the children. After breakfast, the wind had wiped the clouds from the sky, clearing our way for another walk on the beach, this time to the right where we did find rock pools to everyone’s delight. We found a hermit crab, a starfish, a few small and transparent fish. We caught crabs of various sizes (and this time very much alive) and Plum counted a hundred thousand limpets. Or thereabouts. A sea-washed fish box becam
e our picnic table. We ate bread, cheese, sardines from a tin and local smoked fish. We made more coffee on the stove and shared squares of chocolate, too. Then boots and socks came off and toes froze in icy waves. It’s amazing to watch how brave barefoot kids can be in the sea on a good day.
These are good days. Wonderful days. I hope that days like these can be a springboard for wonder for my kids. That they can hold onto these days of surprise and possibility for times when it feels like there is nothing new left to see. That they can keep looking for treasure and store these days away in their hearts and their memories for times when they need the space of that open beach, the feel of the wind and the waves and the friends right along beside them.
