The Dutch and the Sea

[arwen_lune]

I talked about this with Johanna, a British woman I met while I was in Vejer. We talked about beach habits.

I mentioned that as kids, we built great castles on the beach, and defended them against the tide for as long as we could. In my memory we did this a lot, and we weren't the only ones. I still see it on the Dutch coastline now and then. If I went to the beach with like minded friends now it might well happen again.

Johanna was very amused by this as she'd never heard of that game, she declared it something typical of the Dutch psyche. Was she right? Have you ever done this, or seen it done?

Comments

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

Done that, on the very few occasions we went to the sea when I was a kid. Seen it done on Jersey, Malta and in Greece.

[celandineb.livejournal.com]

My sister and cousins and I did that, on the US west coast.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I've seen and done it many times in Germany. My first encounter with Brighton Beach caused a state of shock. I'd heard of Brighton as a seaside resort, and it's all stones. You can't walk barefoot. You can't lie on it. You can't build sandcastles. It's useless!

[seyren]

On the other hand, you don't get sand in your pants. And your ears, and under your fingernails, and - y'know - bloody everywhere. I loved going to the beach as a kid, but getting the sand out afterwards was impossible.

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

Cobblers! We did it lots as kids - me and my sister. Build a big sandcastle with turrets and a moat and dig channels to shift the water away from the castle etc. Mind you, we also built racing cars and thrones out of sand.

[ailbhe]

For some reason, we made row-boats.

[ailbhe]

It's the whole REASON to make sandcastles, with moats and fortresses and things.

[the-ladylark.livejournal.com]

Our version was to build a big castle, with a channel down to the sea so that the water would rush in and fill the moat a good while before the tide came nearly far enough in to wash the castle away.

[aligoestonz.livejournal.com]

Yep, same here.

[troo.livejournal.com]

Us too... mostly because the tide in Israel is a rather sedate affair, and generally won't affect one's castle until long after one's gone home.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's more to do with her having a background that beach doesn't automatically mean sand - beach is a safe bathing place.

I grew up with direct access to some of the best beaches in Ireland (Co. Wexford has, as far as I know, the most sandy bathing beaches in Ireland, to the extent that my mother would pick us up from school at certain times and we'd go straight off for a swim before going home, after the inevitable question of "which sea?" - and we all agreed that we used the beach even more in winter because nothing can beat a winter's walk along a beach) and I was absolutely appalled when I saw what Brighton claims is a beach.

[ryo-chan.livejournal.com]

but but but... it's one of the funnest games you can play on a welsh beach!

yeah, grew up playing that one ^_^

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

Now that I think about it, there was another thing we used to do, on a slope in April, when the snow is melting.

First build a canal for the melting water, using ice, snow and slush. Make as many tribituaries (sp?) as you need to make it a big one, which takes the water away so you can build to the side. Then you make another canal, in parallell or slightly off to the side, that goes almost the whole way to the first.

Build a snow town at the bottom of the second canal. Dam the first canal up. Make the dam as big as you can.

Then break the dam, leading the water into the second canal.

The result was a snow/slush version of what's dominated British news lately.

And a mom who was very angry with us for being soaking wet and muddy.

[(Anonymous)]

I used to do it lots, and it's certainly a British tradition too.
Presumably Johanna didn't go to the same beaches I did :-)

I used to spend hours devising elaborate canals and drainage schemes to see how long the castle could last when surrounded by water.

-Simon W

[tlacook.livejournal.com]

I grew up doing the same thing in Oregon. I'm not Dutch, as far as I know. :)