A day at the beach
While in my last post I was eagerly awaiting the day I could put my toes in the sand, this day came earlier than expected.
In Belgium every local government of a beachtown has its own rules on how they battle COVID-19: https://www.belgiancoast.co.uk/en/inspiration/measures-did-your-favourite-seaside-town-put-place.
However the Dutch coast is in travel time for me a bit closer. Also their numbers for corona illnesses and deaths are better than ours (not sure if we overestimated and they did less testing). But while information panels on the side of the road still advise to not make unnecessary trips, their non-essential shops never closed. This made me think that a visit there would be less stressful.
As the boarders opened on June 15 and I didn’t leave the house, except for grocery shopping, since June 1, I found it time to do something more or less “normal” again. The forecast on June 20 was an average 19°C (66 Fahrenheit), and school holiday hasn’t started yet, so I was hoping for a relaxed day. I think if I didn’t go out at that time, I would have been overcome by agoraphobia at a later stage.
Except for some road works I had a smooth ride to my final destination. I did however cause a small queue at the entrance of the car park as I forgot how to take a ticket to open the barrier.
After a necessary pit stop and my breakfast on a boulevard bench I started a 2 hour walk to a beach in the next town over. On my way there it was easy to keep my distance at the boulevard and the beach, at the harbor it was a bit harder as there is less than 6 feet of space on some parts, but everybody was polite and respected each other’s personal space. I wanted to walk a little further till the center of the town, but at around 13 000 steps I called it quits for the morning. There was still the walk back to consider. The photo’s accompanying this blog show the left and right side of the spot where I laid my towel. As you can see social distancing was not a problem there.
I relaxed about half an hour before lunch and stayed there until about 15.30. Just focusing on the breeze and the lapping of the waves. Walking back along the path trough the dunes it was a bit harder to keep social distancing.
Because I can’t go for a walk without getting blisters I wasn’t spared this time either. I wanted to walk back barefoot on the beach, but at that part of the beach there were a bit too much broken shells. So I stumbled back while contemplating what to have for dinner. The first beach bar I was interested in seemed a bit too crowded, I already passed the shopping street for the convenience store, and while the crepes at https://www.hetpannekoekenhuisje.nl/pannenkoekenrestaurant-scheveningen/pancakes/ are always delicious, I was feeling something different. Hence I walked back closer to the car park and had a nice avocado burger (which isn’t featured on the current online menu anymore) at https://www.mantabeach.nl/.
The plan was to do my grocery shopping after, however after all that walking, I couldn’t muster the energy anymore and came straight home.
Upon my arrival home, my fitbit read 26 553 steps, and I could barely move the next day from sore muscles and sunburn. But it was well worth it! I felt like a normal person, and I think the soft-lock down made me be more at ease with myself as well, as I only read 2 pages from a book on my e-reader. Before I would have almost finished an entire light romance read. These steps allowed me to start a third race on https://yes.fit/. It took some manual adjustments as the entire step total was added to the already finished second race. In order to get faster mileage for this third race, I committed to walk 50 miles during the month of July. This in support of “ABF The Soldiers’ Charity” via the website operationbletchley.soldiercharity.org. And while fundraising isn’t obligated, the site automatically created a page for this. So if you want to support this cause and help give a lifetime of support to soldiers and veterans from the British Army, and their immediate families, when they are in need, you can go to this link: https://operationbletchley-50miles.everydayhero.com/uk/katesbabitat.
Will you visit a beach this summer?
