Beach Days

September has been kind, apologising perhaps for the months that preceded her. We have managed to squeeze in a couple of truly glorious beach visits and even just a few hours on the sand, watching the water (or the kids flipping about in it) does wonders for the soul, doesn’t it. When we lived in Bavaria, and before that, when I was in Münster for eighteen months, I always felt slightly claustrophobic. The places I lived were truly lovely – have you seen Münster’s Prinzipalmarkt? – aber trotzdem, I never could shake this feeling of being stuck. When it rained, or snowed, that darkness was entirely oppressive, unshakeable, inescapable.

When I moved home for six months in 2012, I went to the beach with my mum a week or so after landing. It was the middle of winter but the sun had shone every single day since I had arrived. (I remember counting fourteen days straight of blue skies and sunshine, in August, our winter, and wondering how I was going to go back to Germany.) We had some things to do up at a house my Nana used to own on a beach called Macmasters, one of my favourite spots in the world, and so we drove up on morning. I went down to the water while Mum did some things up at the house, and standing there, as the surf crashed and thrashed, I realised I had failed to identify one thing my life in Germany didn’t have; water. I knew I missed my family and friends, I knew the scarcity of work in our town had killed my sense of purpose. But I didn’t know how profoundly I had missed water. Lakes don’t cut it for me, as lovely as they are to visit when there isn’t any other option. I missed the coast, I missed that sense of utter openness, the width of the world spinning out from the shoreline.

It helped, then, very much that I was in love with a Kieler, and he missed the coast as desperately as I did. I don’t know what we would have done if his application to be moved back north hadn’t been granted. I do know my life in Germany is what it is because we are near water.

In my humble opinion, the best beaches are east of the city, backed by sweeping countryside. When we lived in the city, for a quick Ausflug, we usually hit the closer beaches. Smaller, more crowded, not as beautiful, but quicker to get to – plus there was the novelty of the cruise ships going out to Norway and Sweden, and passing weirdly close to the beachgoers bobbing out in the flat water. But it’s worth the longer drive because the beaches further out are truly something.

We stuck die Lüdde in the water at four months old. It was a hot summer up at Macmasters Beach and so began her love affair with water. Der Lüdde is as fearless as his sister; both of them could stay in the water for hours. Indeed, die Lüdde kept running away when it was time to go after an afternoon of swimming and ice cream last week, despite shivering and being suspiciously blue of lip. I think she knew she had to enjoy it while it lasted; beach days this summer haven’t been plentiful and we are beginning to, albeit slowly, hunker down for the cooler months. She won’t know herself in Oz over Christmas.

Let’s hope the slide into Autumn is a kind one. And please, not too much rain.

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