How better to spend a bank holiday Monday than digging holes in the sand on a beach. Trust me, it beats standing in the B&Q queue, painting the bathroom or mowing the lawn. I spent my bank holiday Monday digging holes in the beach at Gorleston, a blue flag beach just south of Great Yarmouth on the East Norfolk coast. It's a proper traditional British beach with sand, ice cream and chips, but still with character and not too commercialised. I was there to perform uncle-ing duties with the smaller members of my family and to lap up the intermittent sunshine. Oh, and I was watching our fellow daytrippers as well...
Never stray more than fifty yards along the beach from the car park. Nobody else does, and you'd just feel lonely if you had the far flung sections of the beach all to yourself. Use a windbreak to protect unclad limbs from chronic goosepimpling and to stake out your territory so that other families don't stray too close. Bring a cheap ball game with you too, one of those fluorescent plastic frisbee-type games you can buy down the market for 99p, or from the shop on the promenade for £3.99. Don't forget to dig a large hole in front of your beach headquarters, initially with the intention of burying Dad in, but it's actually much more fun to watch passers-by accidentally falling into it just after you've packed up and left.
Wear as little as possible in order to show off your latest batch of tattoos to best effect. Don't bother with the suntan lotion, this isn't Malaga. At least one item of your clothing should be emblazoned with the flag of St George, preferably the item with the bulging elasticated waistband. Teenage males should dress as hip cool surfer dudes to impress their pink girlfriends, but should never shatter the illusion by going anywhere near the water.
Don't bring your own sandwiches because they'll become tainted by the sand which is on the beach. Instead join the lengthy queue for fried fat, reconstituted meat and barely cooked chips from the understaffed cafe on the seafront. It's mandatory to purchase an ice cream mid-way through the afternoon, usually at the same time that everyone else on the beach has decided to buy one. Expect that your favourite lolly will have sold out, but never mind because it's at least 30 years since you last enjoyed a Mini-Milk. Take the weight off your feet and play 10p-a-go automated bingo with the local pensioners, or waste pounds failing to grab the cuddly bear from the impossible glass box in the amusement arcade.
If all that sounds like too much effort, a popular alternative day out is to sit in your car in the car park and look out of the window at all the windswept holidaymakers whilst drinking soup and listening to the radio. But, quite frankly, you'd be missing out on all the fun.
