Two Shiny Coins

Dry, sparkling grains of sand mulch between my toes and I look up to the bright blue sky, shielding my eyes from the blinding heat of the suns rays. There is no one here but us and a few cows, grazing in the dunes. The girls run, free, laughing and shrieking. We don’t have to tell them to keep their distance or STOP or splodge hand sanitiser in to their hands as they touch everything in sight. I breathe. I plonk my bum down in the sand and lean back on a rock, my eyes closed, feeling immense gratitude to be in a different space, a beautiful space, in the wild and in nature. The sun is warm on my skin and I visualise my Vitamin D levels slowly clocking up on a Vit-D-ometer. I open one eye and see the girls splashing in the sea with a piece of seaweed, one of them is pretending to be a dog and the other the owner. I think that if there was any Otters or Seals about before now they have probably scarpered, contemplating these two buoyant blonde Selkies and using their better judgement. 

I look over to my right and my husband is panicking, setting up his fishing rod. 

“There’s Sea Trout rising in the bay.” he says frantically  “I’m going to go straight out, is that OK?!”

I tell him Good Luck and that Dobby is a free elf. He practically sprints towards the sea in his shorts, wading out up to his thighs with his rod in hand. 

All seems relatively quiet. I notice a couple ramble on to the beach, late sixties or early seventies maybe, they walk slowly, expensive looking heavy duty cameras and telescopes slung over their shoulder. They clamber round the rocks to the right of the bay and take up post, obviously watching something. I try to follow their gaze and take out my binoculars, I land on something on the rocks but it’s just a seagull. They wouldn’t have made such an effort for a chip snatcher would they? I wonder what they make of my children splashing and shrieking in the water, free for the first time in months, utterly happy but disturbing all wildlife in a one mile radius.

We pootle on like this for a while, me reading and sipping tea from a flask and occasionally looking up from my book to breathe in the horizon and my surroundings, the girls are playing and my husband is desperately trying to catch fish that are likely trying to hide from the girls shouting and splashing. It feels wonderful to be in the same, beautiful, space but whilst also enjoying our own personal space zones and time out. Its been ‘cosy’ in our house the past few months as I’m sure it has been in yours too. 

All is blissful until I hear a high-pitched shriek, look up from my page, and see the girls dog game has evolved in to two street pups, wrestling on the sand over a plastic trailer with a pull handle. Dear reader, they have a trailer each, I try to anticipate such argy-bargy in advance, but this one has obviously been chosen as the most desirable object and the opponents must wrestle in the sand for their prize. 

“Girls!” I hiss with a shout whisper, some have called it my Lord Voldemort voice previously. And I quickly run to the scene of the disagreement, they are loudly shouting and protesting, as children do. “We have two trailers. You have this one and you have that one.” It does not de-escalate. I glance to the twitchers enjoying their peaceful (ahem) morning and involuntarily twitch myself. “What must that couple think of you two shrieking shielas causing a ruckus on the beach?!” Voldemort says “Give it a rest please or you will have to come sit on the sand with me.” I see my husband wading back from the depths. He looks cross and I wonder whether it is because we are all bickering loudly or because every Sea Trout in the Western Isles has now emigrated due to noise pollution. Or both.

“Right.” He says when he is out of the water. I know that he is serious when he says “Right.” like that. He separates the girls and we divide and conquer. It’s not long before we are all roaring with laughter as the girls do funny dances in the shallows and my husband chases them over the sand.

I glance over to the couple, this incredible beach, like something off a postcard in the Caribbean, is deserted bar us and them. What must they think of us? I muse silently with a half smile as they look through their telescope. The white light of the sun dancing, dappled, on the waves as they break on the shoreline. with the soundtrack of that perfect, repetitive whooshing and rippling sound. 

It happens to be our sixth wedding anniversary and I had the foresight to partly freeze a bottle of white wine in the freezer before we came, I find a bit of washed up old rope (yes, dear reader, there is a joke or irony in there somewhere) and tie one end to the bottle neck and the other to a rock, covering it in seaweed in the cool shallows. Bear Grylls has nothing on me. At 12:02pm I ask my husband and the girls to see if they can find any washed up treasure on the shore and they excitedly discover the bottle. “Maybe it’s grog washed up from a pirate ship?” I say “Perhaps it won’t taste very nice.” Try it Mummy! See what it is! “Oh go on then” I say with feigned reluctance. It’s five o’clock somewhere I think. I open the bottle and pour a glass for me and him. I tell the girls that exactly six years ago in this moment me and Daddy were getting married in front of all our family and friends. They look at us wide eyed as we toast and kiss, my eldest daughter screws up her face a bit and then they both run back to play with a bucket in the sea, unimpressed by the ceremony.

We forgot to buy each other cards but the cold wine on a beautiful beach does the trick. I savour the taste and hundreds of memories.

We are sat with our plastic glasses full of wine when I notice the twitchers approaching. Oh goodness I think. We’ve been making a racket and now they are going to see us drinking wine on the beach at lunchtime. 

“Did you manage to see anything?” I call to them from a distance, slightly wincing awaiting their response.

“Ai pet!” Geordies. “There’s two otters playing happily out there, we’re going to go further up that end of the beach to see if we can see them!” He says animatedly. I wonder if we are driving them down the other end of paradise. We chat for a bit and before they leave he turns to me and says “Its absolutely spectacular here isn’t it? Wonderful.” And I agree.

“Do you know what the best thing we saw and heard over there was?” He pauses and I wait with baited breath. “It was the sound and vision of a young family, enjoying themselves on a beach. Laughing and having fun. That has made my holiday that has. The sound of you lot making the most of each other and this space. Absolutely perfect pet. Good on ya.”

I suddenly feel a bit choked. I thank the couple for their kind words and admit I was worried we might be breaching the peace of this isolated gem. They completely refute it and wish us all the best as they ramble on.

Once they are further down the beach I look up at my husband teary eyed and say “Well, I wasn’t expecting that. That was so lovely.” He agrees. And I reflect that I shouldn’t care so much about what others think. I sip my wine.

We have a blissful few hours and I’m surprised that, still, nobody else has discovered this paradise. I cannot believe that we have been lucky enough to stumble upon it whilst exploring. I take photos on my phone and I feel like it just does not do the place justice. How can you shrink these stretching white sands and expansive turquoise seas in to an iPhone screen and expect it to reflect its beauty, I think.

After a while I notice that the couple are meandering back, the lady approaches me and asks me if she can pass me something. I think about it and agree. She pushes two shiny coins in to my hand and I look up at her bewildered. “What’s this?!” I say. 

“Your girls have brought me such joy on this beach today. Lovely little girls. We’ve loved sharing this space with them. Please will you buy them some sweeties or something from us?” She has tears at the corners of her eyes and I instantly wonder what her story is. 

“That is so, so kind. Are you sure?” She nods and asks me not to make a big deal of it. I can see she is fighting back a lump in her throat.

“Yes, of course. Absolutely. They will be so pleased. That is so very kind. Thank you.” And they slowly make their way back up over the dunes and up the hill. 

I look back down at my hand, considering the two coins, glinting proudly in the sun. Wealth isn’t about your bank balance (thank goodness because the less said about that the better at the moment). The time and adventures together are precious and valuable, more so than such an easily come by commodity like money. Although I understand how lucky we are to have been able to afford, just, to get away. I realise I had momentarily become too concerned with making sure we are all doing the right thing at the right time, a symptom of the current climate maybe. It’s time to just relax a bit and enjoy this place. Worry about that when we get back to normality. Let go.

Later that evening, the girls tucked up in bed, we sit outside at sunset. On our wedding day we put out six empty fizz bottles, each labelled 1-6, and people dropped messages in to them. That night we smash the last bottle, literally and metaphorically, as we have drinks together and read the messages out loud to each other from friends and family. We are liberal with our wine and whisky consumption and we laugh and cry as the sun sets over the fields where deer graze at dusk, to the sound of the running river, until the first star appears. 

We are so rich, I think.

”Remember when you set off on your honeymoon? We threw confetti and then you had stop halfway down the village to have a little cry. How happy and in love you were. I know that love will have grown. You will have had so many lovely and exciting times together But maybe you have had to go through some tough times as well. All these times can make you stronger. I love you so much and I am so proud of you. Family is everything. We are blessed.”

“The year 2020 was used (in a song) to represent so far in to the future that things had changed so much. Have they? Or do some things stay the same? What things do you hold dear to you? Are you still responsible for your own happiness or is it convenient to blame some other factor for the lack of it? 

Soz, for being serious, but if you ask me to write six years in to the future then it will make me serious. I hope I am still around to see that time (and still pulling Pollack out of the Scottish seas.) But I cannot be sure. 

That is why you have to get off your expanding derrières and live every day/week/month/year/decade as if it is your last.” 

Extracts from messages in a bottle. Authors identities protected.