This post was written by Hannah, who entered our Parents’ Writing Competition 2020.
The sea holds a special place in my heart, it is where I spent my childhood holidays and is the location of my most cherished memories of Mum, Dad and Linda. As a child, Linda and I would spend most weekends, nets and buckets in hand, exploring the underwater worlds of the rock pools, each one containing its own mystical civilisation, each one with its own story to tell, filled with unique and colourful characters for us to meet and get to know. We’d attempt to construct the largest and most intricate sandcastle in the world, working as a team to build up each individual tower, using our minds and imaginations to create doorways, bridges and moats from the natural resources around us, our only break a melting ice-cream. We would eat it so quickly, licking it off our hands and between our fingers, turning up our noses as we tasted the salt, all in a desperate attempt to stop it from dripping away from us and onto the sand.
As we got older, we preferred to spend our time clambering the rock faces surrounding the beach. Each placement of hand and foot, an exhilarating yet dangerous venture that made us feel alive and free. Once up on the banks we’d scour the terrain, harvesting any goods we could find, filling our pockets with rock samphire and sea radish to take back and share. Our favourite time of course was when Dad would take us out fishing in the kayak, the sea would bob us along and staring back at the beach, everyone would look so small and the sea beyond us so infinite. We would feel as if we were the only people in the world, just us three and the sea. Once back on land, Mum would cook up whatever it is we had caught for our tea and we would triumphantly eat up our spoils.
The taste of the salt in the air, the sound of the gulls and the sea crashing up against the shore, the smell of the seaweed and the touch of the sand, all of it takes me back to then, to memories gone by of my childhood holidays on the coast. Now about to begin a family of my own, I’m eager to begin our own family holidays and create new memories to look back on and treasure for years to come.