Seen from Scheveningen, Het Puntje is the furthest beach club in the north, quite a walk even beyond Naturel. We came here by bike, through the northern dune park. The beach here is a nudist area, but the weather is rather too chilly for that today. While we were on the bike, Rihanna Gaga was telling me about school - still the dominant topic in our lives. What impresses her most, is the fact that for large amounts of time, she needs to be quiet. I will ask her what she's going to do at school tomorrow and without hesitation, she answers: "I am going to be quiet!" Or, she tells me the teacher sings a nursery rhyme slightly different from how we use to sing it, and I ask her whether she said this to her teacher. Her answer: "No, because we weren't supposed to be speaking at that moment". Everytime she says something like this, my heart breaks a little. Now, we're talking about a joke that she is going to tell her friend. "Will you tell it to her when you see her at school," I ask her. "I will, when we're with the older teacher," she answers (she has two teachers who divide the days between them). "Why with her," I ask. "Because the other teacher wants us to be quiet all the time," she replies.
It is sort of the last straw. Until now, I've been accepting that we need time to adjust, but I cannot stand for this anymore. While we unwind at Het Puntje, I am thinking up solutions that will allow Rihanna Gaga to spend as little time as possible with the stricter teacher (at four years old she doesn't have to go to school everyday yet and we mostly just send her three days a week). And it's probably also better to let her go back to her old daycare, which she misses a lot. Changing to a new daycare at the same time she needs to get used to school was probably overdoing it a bit. She apparently cries a lot when she has to go there after school and she clearly misses her old daycare, always wanting us to take her to a park where the children from that daycare often play in the afternoon. By the time the food arrives, I've pretty much worked out what I want to propose to my girlfriend as a solution to all of this.
Ah, the food. The breakfast served at The Puntje is probably the most special breakfast at the Scheveningen beach: an egg tajine with tomatoes and bell pepper, served with a loaf of bread and some goat cheese (€9,50). Food is ordered at the bar, where you get a flag with a number on it - this greatly amuses Rihanna Gaga - which you have to stick in the sand next to your table. At first, we sit inside, but soon we move outside because the sun breaks through the clouds and it is far less chilly here at the beach than it was back home. Both Rihanna Gaga and I enjoy the tajine. Although it is a bit spicy, it's quite easy to fish out chunks of egg, brush off the spices and let Rihanna Gaga have them. She also likes the goat cheese and the bread.The vibes remain quite laid back. The bar ladies discuss the music and decide they will stay with the crooner ballads. Then, they break out in a fake argument that is delivered with so much gusto that Rihanna Gaga is worried and I have to tell her that they're not really angry with each other, they're only fooling around. They're great comical actresses and I wonder whether this is entertainment meant to go with our breakfast.
Most other customers seem, like I said, to be regulars. There is a yoga class taking place right next to the beach club and its participants, as well as the other customers, range from middle aged to elderly. There's also lots of dogs. Rihanna Gaga is interested in a little girl who is having her birthday together with some adults, but isn't in the mood to make contact. The girl plays in the sand with some toys that she gets from inside, and this prompts Rihanna Gaga to do the same. I read a bit while she plays in the sand, and continue to eat the tajine, which is massive. An old dog comes to the entrance of the beach club and stands in the doorway, coughing with regular intervals. A man sitting next to the doorway starts coughing as well and for a while, they do a sort of call and answer: the dog calls, a few seconds later the man coughts. Then the dog coughs, followed by the man. I wonder if the man is its owner.
Then, it's time to go. We're taking Rihanna Gaga to play with a boy from her class, who is also having difficulties adjusting to school life. The idea is that if they know more children from their class, it will probably also be easier to spend the day with them. With my head full of resolutions for how to deal with school and daycare the coming days, I cycle back to Scheveningen.
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