Beer & The Beach

There is nothing quite like a walk on the beach on a windy day, and windy it was. 35km/hr at Bloemendaal. 12km of walking up and down dunes and along the waterfront, the taste of sea salt & tangled hair on the tip of the tongue.

It felt like I was walking some alien landscape, stones peaking, casting sand shadows,  low streaming sand clouds whipping around my ankles. Brutally beautiful.

My daughter found a message in a bottle, a letter from a child to long passed relative, dated 2007. Hoping that it was ‘gezellig’ in heaven (Dutch for cheerful), sending their regards to a lost aunty and apologizing for not visiting more often. Sad. On a positive note, the child did inform the deceased of their recent reward for coming first in a colouring competition. On realizing there was no treasure to be found, my daughter pushed the note back into the bottle & cast it out, back into the arms of the sea. A track from Florence and the Machine played in my mind….

It made me think about life & death, the fragile line between living & existing, the balancing acts, struggles and sacrifices, then the wind caught my thoughts and blew them all away.

Off to the beach hit to sit round the blazing fire, we picked on salty fries and came across a hidden gem: Budels Organic larger, made with water from Brabant!  A local brew with the taste of summer, (no I’m not being paid to advertise) to liven our windswept spirits. A great way to to end a great walk.