Going to the seaside

I have fond memories of going to the seaside when I was a kid. These were day trips at the weekend. Mum’d prepare a picnic and steaming hot flasks of tea, pack spades and pails, blow up rings, travel blankets and large towels, and we'd all pile into a car and head for the coast. Prestwick or Ayr were the usual destinations involving a drive through the countryside over the Eaglesham Road. These days there’s a motorway all the way there if you go via Glasgow. But in those days the only way to go was over the moors to the coast. There was always great excitement in the car on route. Who would see the sea first? There is a long straight road and you come over a hill and there is the sea in all its glory. “There’s the sea,” we’d all scream from the back of the car. We only actually lived about an hour away from the sea but in those days it seemed to be an expedition to go on these trips. Now,  I do not remember the cold. But it must have been freezing.  I do remember running around in a swimsuit in and out of the sea (in Scotland??) with my brothers. And racing over the dunes, building sandcastles with moats, watching the holes fill up with water and then disappear and then refill with another wave. And when it must have been too cold even for us hardened Scots, we just ran about in the sand fully clothed,  collecting shells, getting our shoes wet when we didn’t run away from the waves fast enough and poking about in the rock pools to see what we could find.  

Food and drink always tasted so much better by the sea. We would have ham sandwiches (before I became vegetarian),  juicy salmon sandwiches with lots of mayonnaise, and lots of tea to warm us up. We’d even have hot Heinz tomato soup sometimes. In fact I can remember fighting with the windbreak to keep it upright as we all huddled behind it protected from the cold gales drinking tomato soup out of mugs. This was summer in Scotland.

These days though in Sri Lanka I am far away from the west coast of Scotland. We still go to the seaside.  I’m fortunate enough to have ‘a seaside’ at the bottom of the road from the house in Unawatuna. The beach there is one of the best in the world. We don’t though spend a lot of time on it because of the difficulty of walking on the sand. We do though spend time at the beach restaurants and will sometimes walk down the road and sit on the beach at sunset, then phone for Chaminda to come  and pick us up in the tuk tuk as the hill back up is a bit of a challenge.  

Where we do go most weekends is the Fortress. This is a lovely hotel in Koggala about a ten minute drive from my house in Unawatuna. It is right on the coast. Turtles come in to the shallow waters caused by the reef in front of the hotel.  It has large grounds and even when it is full it nearly feels that full. There is always plenty of space for everyone. There is a 50 metre pool which must be one of the best in the country for swimming.  And you often have it all to yourself. The pool boys can organise a shady space for me and mum either poolside or under the trees. I can swim and read and mum can watch the ships out at sea, the squirrels racing around,  and the people and their antics or she can doze on the lounger. Lunches are good. We share margarita pizza cooked in their pizza oven which is great. Or if we are just there for the afternoon then she has pots of tea and I have ginger beer.  She gets looked after. The pool boys and the waiters spoil her. She is probably the oldest person in the place and the only one to keep her clothes on.  We do tours of the grounds to keep up her walking.  When I am swimming they check on her periodically.  When I have visitors I always ask permission to bring them to the hotel. We are members and it’s not a hotel where you can sign people in or buy pool tickets.  They have always let me bring people in. We spend days there and have lunch and she can feel part of a larger family. The pre-dementia her would have loved the place and been really impressed by its grandeur.  As it is, she just likes the peace and quiet by the waves and the tankers in the distance. It’s not picnics at Prestwick but it suits the pair of us at the moment.