The wind strings

Pendine in West Wales in the middle to late ‘50’s of the last century. (God that makes me feel old!)

That resort of early motor car speed records and record attempts came to mind as we determinedly lay in the sun while being gradually sand blasted by the sand laden wind which whipped along the beach. Usually we are gifted with a fresh breeze from the sea which makes lying on the beach a pleasure. A slight deviation in direction and you are in the position where you can actually feel your nostrils begin to fill with small hard particles.

When a child we sometimes took holidays in Pendine. We stayed in a caravan with gas lights with very fragile mantles. This I discovered when I touched one and found that it was more friable than a butterfly’s wing. I told no one and hoped that it would be put down to natural forces. I had a great belief in ‘natural forces’ in those days. I believed, fondly as it usually turned out, that any deleterious actions occasioned by my innocent frolicking or by my ‘questing’ mind might simply be dismissed as ‘one of those things.’

I always found the difference between the ‘trivial’ assessment by a child and the ‘serious’ assessment by an adult a thing of constant surprise. ‘Not important’ almost inevitably became redefined as ‘essential to the continuance of Western Civilization.’

So the eating of rice pudding; not biting one’s nails; brushing one’s shoes; walking on the outside of the pavement when with a lady; pronouncing ‘trait’ in its correct manner; using the butter knife and always referring to ‘an hotel’ without pronouncing the ‘h’ became the basis of the way of life that would get you where you should be. Don’t knock it – that list seems to me to be going in the right direction!

The ‘natural forces’ that I experience in Pendine were mostly those of nature. I can remember walking back up the beach to the caravan and almost being on the verge of tears because the force of the wind driven sand against my young legs was like a million tiny knives being sunk into my flesh.

I can also remember the virtual impossibility of removing the patina of sand which had, particle by particle, wedged itself into every tiny pore in my body and made the lower part of my body look as though I had made it up to look like some sort of Medieval Golem!

Castelldefels did not have the cutting vindictiveness of Pendine but it did make lying in the sun an effort of will rather than the denial of will to do anything else. The other sturdy sunbathers had a look of rugged determination rather than sybaritic enjoyment of sun worshipers.

Luckily we were stopped in our masochistic ‘pleasures’ by the telephoned arrival of Toni’s family. We were then able to retire from the beach with some sort of dignity and retire to the sedate pleasures of the pool.

We are now officially in the Month of the Holiday of Everyone and the proof of that is that virtually all the flats are occupied. We (Toni and I) are used to most of these expensive residences being owned by the sort of rich people who do not have to rent out their flats to proles like us and keep them empty (but periodically cleaned) except for the few weeks in the summer that they deign to use them.

We like these rich people to stay away because when they arrive they act as if they own the place. Which in fact they do. But we do not like to be reminded of this odious fact. They also bring other life forms with them to share their flats.

These life forms may be young grandchildren who are extra dutiful to grandparents who just happen to have a flat on the beach at Castelldefels. They also include various forms of rat dogs.

Rat dogs are, in many respects, worse than cats. At least cats go out from time to time whereas rat dogs simply whimper or yap their way from seat to sun to shade to food. They are also propriatorial and assume that the entire block of flats is their territory and bark at all movement real and imaginary. God rot them all!

Roll on the colder and neighbourless days of the end of the summer!