Kiting on the Beach

Yesterday late afternoon Anne Sophie and I went for our favourite walk through the dunes of Wassenaar to the beach north of The Hague/Scheveningen. It was about 5 o'clock, and most beach goers already left, as it started to cool down after the hot and stuffy day.

It takes us 15 minutes to drive to the Meijendel Farm and another 25-30 minutes to walk the 2km trail through the woods and dunes to the beach. It should of course take less time, but Anne Sophie likes running around  and playing all kinds of games that she makes up along the way. This time I was supposed to be a calf and she a goat kid :) And then she started to draw crosses on the path with a stick to warn people not to walk there. And then we would draw the letters of her name, one letter every 20 meters or so. And then we were throwing the ball forward and trying to get to the ball first. When you walk like that, time really flies.

From Kiting on the Beach of Meijendel!

The sun was shining and the dunes were majestic. We hardly ever met anyone along the way, except (what a coincidence) some of our good friends Nadya, Volodya and Sergey, who were returning from the beach! Anne Sophie took Volodya's hand, even though she hadn't seen him for a couple of years, and started telling him stories from her school life. (To tell the truth, I am amazed how she trusts people that she hardly knows. I think it's a fine quality, even if some people may find it dagerous.) Sergey told of their trip to Mont St. Michel in Normandy, France. On Friday, he and Nadya and another friend were driving on the motorway, and then they thought they'd go to Brugge in Belgium. They had nothing with them except money, not even a tooth brush. But they thought what the heck! When close to Brugge, they missed the exit and decided to go on to France. They got home late Saturday night. That's a real adventure!

Except for a couple of walkers, the beach was virtually empty when we got there. It was sunny, but there was a cool breeze from the sea. Because of the haze we could neither see The Hague in the south nor Katwijk in the north. It felt like we were on some distant stretch of beach away from civilization.

And then we assembled our first kite that we bought on Queen's Day this April for a couple of Euros. It is a simple but beautiful triangular kite in rainbow colors. It is easy to get and keep flying in the wind, but it doesn't give you much steering control. We were running up and down the beach for almost 2 hours, and I must say I fell in love with kiting! What an intense felling of joy and freedom! I hope to be back soon with a more professional kite!

The sea water was very cold, but we did play Anne Sophie's favourite game of running away from the waves! And we would also draw on the sand. We drew Anne Sophie's name in Dutch and Russian (Аннушка) and also the word "Papa".

And then we got hungry and it was time to go home. We walked back through the dunes, and after Anne Sophie scratched her ankle and got really tired I carried her the rest of the way on my back. On the way back we called on Roderick to borrow his extension ladder so that Luda can paint the window frames tomorrow :)

It was a beautiful evening, something to cherish and remember for a long time!