HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE A TRUE ‘COASTIE’?

It’s a given, as soon as you throw those windows open you wake up to the smell of the sea air, the sea mist settles on the kitchen countertops whilst you gather your breakfast cereal and coffee and you absent-mindedly wipe everything down with the kitchen tea towel. You don’t think twice. There’s the murmur of the waves somewhere in the cacophony of the morning awakening but the television news just gets adjusted slightly louder with a word of explanation. It’s a given. The dog walk and kids to school run is done by the count of the breakers onto the beach as you TRY to get a move on. “Just one more set mum, I can see a big wave coming at the back”, so the car ticks over whilst you check your emails on the phone and the kids get one more ‘set’ and the dog runs his wet slobbery nose over the inside of the car window in his attempt to …..well who knows what is going through the doggy mind……..and it’s off to school.

Now its doggy’s turn for a walk.  Where? the beach of course, where else? It’s a given.  It’s so easy. Whilst you slowly walk barefoot along the edge of the waves and gather your thoughts for the day, the mad mutt is gloriously rolling over and over in the sand, kicking, sniffing, barking and generally becoming more and more like a sand structure than an actual furry thing on four legs. Who needs a collar and lead when he does the exercise himself?

There’s time for a chat along the way with the many locals that stop to say “g’dday, how are you going?’ It’s a given, you are never lonely on the beach, there’s always someone to pass the time of day even if you have a sandy dog that has just cleaned himself off in the waves and run back to kindly greet your ‘friend’ with a shake of his whole, soggy, smelly, furry body. There’s something about us Coasties that accept this type of greeting without worrying about ‘what the neighbours think’.

And as you get yourself finally off to the days’ chores, with the car boot a scramble of wetsuits and flippers and sun cream tubes that have been left without the lid on, wet, sandy towels that you’d forgotten to throw in the wash and leaving no room for any shopping you might remember to pick up…….you know……….you wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s a given “Surf’s up”.

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