On a turning tide.

On a turning tide.
Watching sand slipping back under the sea.
Young black headed gulls feeding on the shoreline. Turnstone & Sanderling scurrying along the tideline. Redshanks and Dunlin among exposed rocks at north end of the beach.
A solitary wary Curlew.

Father and daughter, shoes sinking into wet sand, wait until a wave is almost at their feet, turn and run. Holding hands they follow the retreating wave. Stop, stand. Then he shouts.
‘Run. Quick, run’.
They try to stand on an exposed rock, but not for long. Watching it disappear under water, he says.
‘Can’t stand there anymore’.
The wind’s turned, a cold north easterly blowing, and the beach is disappearing fast now. Abandoning their game they move towards the lower promenade and the café.
Waves will soon be slapping the sea wall here.

Further along the beach, where sand is still exposed, two children build sand castles, excavate channels, willing the water to enter, fill the moat they’ve dug. The tide dissolves their efforts, washes smooth the channels, the earth works they’ve constructed.
It might appear a futile game, but only if you were to take seriously the desire to hold back the tide. They don’t, won’t let the incoming waves wash over their enthusiasm for building, and anyway there’s always tomorrow, always another low tide.