It's more than a year since the last edition of Our Monday Brunches and I'm pushing the baby stroller while walking towards the beach. No, not because Rihanna Gaga, who turned six this summer, has reverted to lying in baby strollers, but because there is a new baby. I've decided to call him Billie Stormzy for this blog, because that is the most 2019 name I can come up with (in the same sense that Rihanna Gaga was very 2013). Also, that's the music I currently enjoy the most. The reason why I haven't been writing for this blog for a long time now,
is that it turned out to be difficult to keep up the brunches after
Rihanna Gaga started school, with only 5 posts written over the past two years. Also, Rihanna Gaga stopped enjoying our brunches, preferring to hang around in playground or playing with friends and I didn't want to force her to come along. So let's see if I can return to my former rate of posting now that there's a new little one to join me.
Rihanna Gaga is on a short trip to Belgium with my partner, so it's just the two of us. Billy Stormzy is 7 weeks old, significantly younger than Rihanna Gaga was when we started with this blog. It's 11:00, in the middle of his most lively hours of the day - between 9:00 and 12:00 he tends to be very awake and alert. As we walk down the Gevers Deynootweg, he keeps turning his head to make sense of all the sounds he's hearing. Unlike other babies, taking a walk is not a sure way to get him to sleep - he sleeps at his regular hours, no matter where he is.
When we reach the Carlton hotel, we turn left to the beach. The entire boulevard is under construction here, as Scheveningen is being developed. It's not a bad move - this part of the boulevard had become decidedly dodgy, but the construction seems to be takin ages. Few beach clubs right next to De Pier are there this year, with most of them having opted to not bother as the building activities are taking place. And then some beach clubs have also already been removed, as it is late in the season and autumn is already well advanced.
The first beach club open for business is Manta Beach. I open the rather heavy shutter door and push the baby stroller inside. A friendly waitress helps me to close the door and I enter pandemonium. A group of busy, loud German boys from between 7 and 10 years old is wrecking havoc, while their parents sit and watch them with a despondent look in their eyes. They seem to have given up on correcting them, although one mother makes a half-hearted attempt every once in a while, but the only result is that the other three parents start looking even more desperate - she has absolutely no effect on the boys themselves. It's impossible to see how many boys there are, they're continuously moving, hitting each other, dancing around the table where their parents sit, running through the beach club, jumping up and down. There could be three, but there could just as easily be ten of them.
I order what is called the Manta "epic breakfast"and a tea. Nothing for Billie Stormzy, obviously, who is still on a strict newborn diet. He's wide awake, but while he is normally very sensitive to sounds around him and hates noisy places, he doesn't seem bothered by the pack of screaming and crying boys. I pick him out of the stroller and put him on my lap. He seems utterly content, smiling at me and slightly bobbing his head. Am I imagining things, or is he nodding to the rythm of the pleasant reggae-ish music - not really full out reggae, which his sister used to love as a baby, but reggae-tinged soft rock, which, strangely enough, fits this grey October morning at the beach perfectly.
Manta, as I noticed when I was here with Rihanna Gaga, one and a half year ago, is a very nice place, also inside. There's green plants everywhere, which fits Manta's soft green walls and gives the place a very earthy feel, together with the wooden furniture and greenhouse sideroom. Soon after we sit down, the Germans leave and the place is left very quiet once the boys and their noise have gone. Beside us, there are no patrons. It's a typical Monday morning at the beach, the kind I used to have a lot when I started this blog with Rihanna Gaga. On my lap, Billie Stormzy is dozing off, and I lay him on a pillow on the broad couch next to me.
Breakfast arrives. I don't know if it is truly, as promised, epic, but it is very nice. A nice, fresh croissant, a thick slice of cornbread and a thick slice of dark bread, a bowl of yoghurt and fruit, beetroot hummus, slices of cheese, bacon and eggs, and a salad of different green leaves, tomato slices and avocado. Best of all, there is no dressing over the salad - just really good, tasty vegetables. There's also chocolate sprinkles and jam, but with everything else, I decide to ignore these. For €10,5, this is a very good deal indeed.
I eat the breakfast, and when I'm finished, Billie Stormzy is awake again. I put him on my lap and we chat a little - not with words, obviously, but there is certainly a conversation going on in sounds and smiles. Billie Stormzy is unimpressed with the sea - I'm not even certain his gaze is developed enough to really see the sea - and is mostly focused on his immediate surroundings. Me, the plants, the pillows. I realise it's time for his bottle, but decide to walk home and feed him there, so that he can go straight to bed afterwards. While he sleeps, I can then write this blog.
I pay with Billie Stormzy on my arm and then put him in the stroller. I put on my coat and we leave the beach club, on towards the rainy beach where the builders are deconstructing the foundations of buildings that once stood here, to make room for the new boulevard.
Rihanna Gaga is on a short trip to Belgium with my partner, so it's just the two of us. Billy Stormzy is 7 weeks old, significantly younger than Rihanna Gaga was when we started with this blog. It's 11:00, in the middle of his most lively hours of the day - between 9:00 and 12:00 he tends to be very awake and alert. As we walk down the Gevers Deynootweg, he keeps turning his head to make sense of all the sounds he's hearing. Unlike other babies, taking a walk is not a sure way to get him to sleep - he sleeps at his regular hours, no matter where he is.
When we reach the Carlton hotel, we turn left to the beach. The entire boulevard is under construction here, as Scheveningen is being developed. It's not a bad move - this part of the boulevard had become decidedly dodgy, but the construction seems to be takin ages. Few beach clubs right next to De Pier are there this year, with most of them having opted to not bother as the building activities are taking place. And then some beach clubs have also already been removed, as it is late in the season and autumn is already well advanced.
The first beach club open for business is Manta Beach. I open the rather heavy shutter door and push the baby stroller inside. A friendly waitress helps me to close the door and I enter pandemonium. A group of busy, loud German boys from between 7 and 10 years old is wrecking havoc, while their parents sit and watch them with a despondent look in their eyes. They seem to have given up on correcting them, although one mother makes a half-hearted attempt every once in a while, but the only result is that the other three parents start looking even more desperate - she has absolutely no effect on the boys themselves. It's impossible to see how many boys there are, they're continuously moving, hitting each other, dancing around the table where their parents sit, running through the beach club, jumping up and down. There could be three, but there could just as easily be ten of them.
I order what is called the Manta "epic breakfast"and a tea. Nothing for Billie Stormzy, obviously, who is still on a strict newborn diet. He's wide awake, but while he is normally very sensitive to sounds around him and hates noisy places, he doesn't seem bothered by the pack of screaming and crying boys. I pick him out of the stroller and put him on my lap. He seems utterly content, smiling at me and slightly bobbing his head. Am I imagining things, or is he nodding to the rythm of the pleasant reggae-ish music - not really full out reggae, which his sister used to love as a baby, but reggae-tinged soft rock, which, strangely enough, fits this grey October morning at the beach perfectly.
Manta, as I noticed when I was here with Rihanna Gaga, one and a half year ago, is a very nice place, also inside. There's green plants everywhere, which fits Manta's soft green walls and gives the place a very earthy feel, together with the wooden furniture and greenhouse sideroom. Soon after we sit down, the Germans leave and the place is left very quiet once the boys and their noise have gone. Beside us, there are no patrons. It's a typical Monday morning at the beach, the kind I used to have a lot when I started this blog with Rihanna Gaga. On my lap, Billie Stormzy is dozing off, and I lay him on a pillow on the broad couch next to me.
Breakfast arrives. I don't know if it is truly, as promised, epic, but it is very nice. A nice, fresh croissant, a thick slice of cornbread and a thick slice of dark bread, a bowl of yoghurt and fruit, beetroot hummus, slices of cheese, bacon and eggs, and a salad of different green leaves, tomato slices and avocado. Best of all, there is no dressing over the salad - just really good, tasty vegetables. There's also chocolate sprinkles and jam, but with everything else, I decide to ignore these. For €10,5, this is a very good deal indeed.
I eat the breakfast, and when I'm finished, Billie Stormzy is awake again. I put him on my lap and we chat a little - not with words, obviously, but there is certainly a conversation going on in sounds and smiles. Billie Stormzy is unimpressed with the sea - I'm not even certain his gaze is developed enough to really see the sea - and is mostly focused on his immediate surroundings. Me, the plants, the pillows. I realise it's time for his bottle, but decide to walk home and feed him there, so that he can go straight to bed afterwards. While he sleeps, I can then write this blog.
I pay with Billie Stormzy on my arm and then put him in the stroller. I put on my coat and we leave the beach club, on towards the rainy beach where the builders are deconstructing the foundations of buildings that once stood here, to make room for the new boulevard.
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