Beachclub At Sea

At Sea really is quite lovely. Large wood carvings cover the walls, potted plants hang from the ceiling and the whole beach club is in tasteful white, grey and wooden colours, with bright pink and blue pillows giving the whole a lively touch. It is very beach-y, with its whitewashed furniture and tabletops made out of large chunks of unfinished wood. It's towards the end of the southern dunes, just before you reach Kijkduin. There, impressively large wooden stairs lead to the beach where a group of three beach clubs is gathered and one of these is At Sea.

We decide to sit inside, because the weather has turned a bit chilly again after a few summer days. After breakfast, we will return home quickly to continue working on the dollhouse we started last week - and we already did some painting this morning, so Rihanna Gaga fits in quite well with the place, with dashes of white paint on her arms and cheek. It's quiet inside: there's a couple having breakfast and that's it. Rihanna Gaga and I discuss what we need to buy for the dollhouse before we go home again: wallpaper, bits of wood for the walls, a handsaw, glue... She also wants to buy furniture, but I tell her that can wait. First, we need to get the dollhouse itself ready.

The waitress takes our order. At Sea has no set breakfast, but some very good options instead. We take bread with scrambled eggs, fricandeau and cheese (€8,50), a mint tea and an apple juice for Rihanna Gaga. While we wait, Rihanna Gaga is playing around, being very active and hopping on and off the couch. Meanwhile, she keeps saying things like: "What are you doing, Reus?" (Reus being the name of our cat) "You don't live here, Reus! You don't live in Scheveningen, do you Reus?" I ask her what she's talking about, since Reus very much lives in Scheveningen. "No," she says, "it's merely a story I am telling."
"A story?"
"Yes, a weird story. A very weird story!" she laughs.

Breakfast is brought and it tastes good. The eggs are nicely done and mixed with the melted cheese, but the fricandeau is a bit tasteless - though nothing a bit of salt and pepper won't solve. Rihanna Gaga takes a fair bit of eggs and cheese and tries the fricandeau, but isn't impressed. Instead, she takes a part of my bread. When we're finished, I ask whether she wants to go, but instead of giving an answer she says she wants to 'play supermarket' - she still very much likes roleplaying, something she already developed in Tunisia, although 'playing store' has evolved into 'playing supermarket', since our daily shopping is not being done in local grocery stores, but rather in supermarkets since then. First I have to be the woman from the supermarket, then I have to be her customer. We buy and sell for a while, and I ask again whether we shall go. But she shakes her head and tells me she wants to continue playing for a bit.

So I order a latte macchiato with an extra shot of espresso. Rihanna Gaga wants a chocolate milk and when our drinks arrive, we also order a piece of cheesecake. We eat the cheesecake together and I tell Rihanna Gaga that we will leave once I've finished my coffee. I sip my hot drink and read a little, while RIhanna Gaga passes the time - as she so often does these days - by singing "Let It Go" (I wonder whether the way this song is ingraining itself in a whole generation of children will create an increased receptiveness for Zen Buddhism in the future). When I'm done with my coffee, I pay and we leave, on our way to a day of dollhouse building.