The beach in my backyard and my life as a Calico Cat
Living mere kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean is perhaps one of the novelties of living here that may never wear off. Our life is VERY uncomplicated these days which makes for ample recreational opportunities. That being said, there is one piece of fiber in our American beings that we can’t seem to rid ourselves of and has caused us a stumble or two along the way. We (Americans) tend to be a spontaneous lot, and the concept of an impulse vacation is not at all unheard of. No planning, no preparation, just get in the car and go. In fact, most weekend getaways in the States are based upon this sense of freedom and spontanaity. That is not the case here. You plan your vacation, intensively. Plans are made a year in advance and hotel bookings seem very scarce on short notice. What’s more, hotels are not all that plentiful except in the largest cities and there seems to be a preference for the mobile home and holiday gite. We have been victims of this before, but surely an afternoon trip to the Ocean won’t cause a problem. Unfortunately, the entire country goes on vacation in the month of August and on this day, it seems that most of them were heading to the beach. We got approximately half way there, and the road to our destination turned into a parking lot. Not wanting to spend a perfectly good Saturday in the car, we decided to head home and make alternate arrangements. They day turned out to be one of the warmest of the summer, and the troops were disappointed in not getting a chance to cool off in the surf. My recommendation to save the day was a timeless activity we all know from childhood. No scorching summer afternoon can stand up to the refreshing enjoyment of a garden hose and sprinkler head. A quick stop by the closest supermarket and we were back in business. We arrived home and I unpackaged our newly acquired recreational equipment and found, much to my surprise that the hose was just that. A hose with cut ends. No way to attach it to the hydrant. Peculiar. No longer surprised by any of the oddities that life overseas entails, I sent my wife after a replacement. She returned to the store and advised them that in her mind the hose was broken and she needed another. As it turns out, all hoses are simply lengths of tube without fittings. Fittings are sold separately as it would seem they like the snap on plug and play adapters at the end of their hoses. She found a man in the hose section that took mercy on her and lead her to the correct fittings. When she returned I commenced to putting this erector set together. Soon enough, the kids were splashing and playing to their hearts content, the same way I had in my youth. Some things are time tested and never go out of style.
To go along with our backyard festival, I decided to fire up the grill and cook some steaks. Since I recently ran into a slight connectivity issue with my American gas grille and the European bottles, I opted to purchase some charcoal at the store and grill the steaks over the coals. Another learning experience. Not surprisingly, there is no such thing as Match Light here. “Charcoal” is sold in a similar bag as in the states, but the contents are quite dissimilar. No synthetic, uniformly manufactured brickettes here. The bag, as it turned out, contained diced up chunks of charred wood that you would find after a campfire had run its course. Upon some postmortem research, lighting these babies is a multistep process that requires additional supplies. Here is the 411. You start with paper or a gel substance you can buy at the store. Atop this you start a kindling fire. Bundles of kindling are also available at the market. Atop the kindling fire you place your irregular chunks of charred wood. I attempted my fire in virtually reverse order given that originally I had hoped that the coal chunks had some magical properties and would burn on their own as ours do in the States. The lackluster burn that I got out of this mélange of coal, dried grape vine, sticks from the yard and printer paper meant that three steaks that started cooking at 6 were ready at 9. They were cooked almost to perfection, but the nature of the beef here made for a demanding dining experience. Tough as the bottom of a boot, we chewed and chewed. Don’t know why we thought that we could do it better than the restaurants where we had had similar experiences with steak. You live, you learn . . . and sometimes it takes twice for the message to sink in. The highlight of the evening was the acquisition of our new feline companion. She is a lovely cat which we have named ete (accent on each e, but I can’t seem to make that happen with my American born computer) which translates to Summer. She is tiger stripped in a combination of colors as if the bastard child of a purely grey tiger striped cat, and that with a purely orange and white stripe. The markings are striking, but unusual. Unfortunately by the end of the following day, we would be a matched pair.
Our backyard waterpark did not entirely satiate the crew of their thirst for the Atlantic, so it was agreed that we would rise early on Sunday morning to see if we could beat the traffic. I am pleased to note that our plan was a success and we spent the meaty part of the Sunday on the beach enjoying an afternoon of bodyboarding. Even the youngest has become fairly adept at the practice, and what I had anticipated being a waste of money (the purchase of bodyboards) appears to be a lasting passion for the entire family that will likely require upgrading our gear at some point. We have already gotten our money’s worth out of the entry level rides. The surf was perfect, calm with tall rolling waves that make for an endless session of good times. The afternoon lingered on and by the car ride home, I was well versed in the error of my ways. I have the darkest complexion of my crew and as such do not require a liberal dose of mayonnaise before going into the sun. Age, and life experience however have taught me that a wicked case of skin cancer on the top of my balding head is an inevitability if I do not take the proper precautions. That being said, I perhaps paid a little too much attention to getting a good coating of sunblock on my dome and not enough on other parts of my body. I usually only require an SPF of about 8 on most of my extremities to prevent a burn, so my wife slathered some on my back and I took care of the rest. Both she and I appear to have been in too big of a rush as a majority of my body is perfectly fine, but noticeably hand sized splotches of blistered skin appeared by night fall. I would like to blame the wife, but my coating on the top of my chest was as poor if not poorer than her attempt to shield my back. So, now I too have striking and unusual markings much like my new feline companion. That about sums up the weekend and we are still without internet connection, although the promise is that this will be the big week that we FINALLY get hooked up. At this point, I am not holding my breath. Oh well, C’est la vie! Until tomorrow or the next day . . . R.
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