The Grumpy Hiker

The Rye Foreshore is a contradictory place, especially early in the day when there aren’t so many people around.  On the one hand, the terrain is sufficiently flat and wooded such that a person standing on the sand is unable to clock any buildings or man made structures other than the rickety pier reaching its way out over the sandy flats, while on the other, especially as the morning sun rises higher, turning the shallows a sparkling turquoise and the sand an iridescent white, the razor-sharp glare can pierce the eye sockets and burn a searing, migraine-generating scar on one’s spongy grey-matter.

Such was the case for poor, little Waltzie, who missed out on a good deal of open, outdoor space as a young ‘un, and who I was unable to coax from the shade of the canvas cocoon which, in this era of chemically-driven rapid squamous cell replication, has replaced the nostalgic stripes of the trusty beach umbrella.

After perhaps an hour and half of reading over and over the single, hastily packed story book (for just such contingencies), my cabin fever was on the verge of erupting into a great, Papa-Bear snarl, so in my best Count von Trapp clip, I ordered my two regimental infantrymen off down the now-burning sands for a mid-morning walk along the pier.

Now Hambones is quite partial to a good stiff walk, no doubt stemming from his early pram-riding days when I would take him down the street, and out of necessity, he was forced to vacate the seat to make room for a slab of VB cans.  But Waltzie, having been reared from her early days behind compound walls, never really built-up much of an appetite for even mildly strenuous ambulation.  As such we weren’t long down the beach before I was hearing complaints of sole-maiming sand, sunstroke and general weariness. 

But with good ol’ fashioned stiff upper lippedness and my best Sergeant-Major bark, on I marched them to the end of the pier, where she and Hambones developed a bit of a spring in their steps thanks to some Sunday-morning dive groups, fishing troupes and itinerant teens taking illegal and potentially spine-splintering leaps of the gull-soiled pylons.

Thankfully, sometime during our return journey through the shallows, my scheme took hold and began to flourish as Hambones and Waltzie fell into some ambient verbal exchange which grew into giggles and splashes and eventually, with boogie-boards in tow, a full-blown bout of Waltzie’s unique, electrifying shrieks of pleasure.  This rapturous, ecstatic music, not the blinding sun, was what truly warmed me as I dozed in the shade of the flapping tent, reminding me why it’s so important for these two wonderful beings that I get them out of the house, into the car, and off on a weekend adventure.