BooNooNooNooS

It's slightly chilly as I steer my bike down the steep slope leading from the road to the boulevard, just south of where Scheveningen Village's main shopping street turns into a square that leads onto the beach and the sea. Here, there are two beach clubs side by side - last week's Copacabana and BooNooNooNooS - that have been here for a long time, now. At a distance from both the cluster of beach clubs at the southern end of the boulevard, and the stretch of beach clubs at Scheveningen's most busy part of the beach, these two offer a more relaxed atmosphere. Today, Billie Stormzy and me will have breakfast at BooNooNooNooS.

The first thing that'll strike you about BooNooNooNooS is how... blue it is. The beach club itself is painted in bright blue, and the pillows on the couches are blue as well. I'm also pleased to hear the chilled out lounge beats that used to be the music to play at beach clubs when I started frequenting them around eight years ago. For me, nothing sounds as much like a lazy sunny day at the beach as this music, but most beach clubs these days opt for accoustic soft rock. I'm sure this is merely a sign of me getting old; but it is nice that at least today, BooNooNooNooSis catering to my tastes. The terrace boasts another classic beachclub element: a huge Buddha that keeps watch over the boulevard; somewhat incongruously, since BooNooNooNooS has a carribean, rather than asian theme - apparently, "boonoonoonoos is Jamaican for "happiness and delight". But, there are probably Buddhists on Jamaica too.

Arrows on the wooden floor point the walking direction. Most places have these nowadays, to make sure people don't walk too closely past each other - another Covid-19 measure. As it's quite windy, I sit down in the far end corner of the terrace, where I'm shielded by the glass windscreens around the terrace. There's two nice, comfy couches around a low table, and I put down Billie Stormzy next to me. A very friendly waitress brings me the menu and I take the set breakfast. While I wait for the breakfast, I prepare Billie Stormzy's 10 o'clock bottle and feed him. After that, he is very active - refusing to remain on the couch, he crawls around on the floor, examining everything he finds in his way.

Breakfast is brought: thick slices of fresh bread, yoghurt with fresh fruit in it, a croissant, ham and chees, a fried egg with two small sausages, and some orange juice. The whole thing tastes very good - the fare is pretty standard apart from the mini-sausages, but the ingredients are fresh and tasty. I give Billie Stormzy a piece of bread, but he's not interested. Instead, he spends his time while I eat with trying to pick things from the low table and throwing them on the floor. The challenge is to move everything to the other side of the table before he can grab them, then moving them back again once he manages to get close to them again. He's especially interested in the cutlery, endangering himself when he gets hold of a knife or fork. Obviously, none of his toys seem as appealing to him as whatever he can nick off the table. Finally, he succeeds in taking possession of a teaspoon and since it doesn't seem like he can do much damage with that, I let him play with it.

In the meantime, the clouds have broken - at least over Scheveningen, while elsewhere the sky seems as clouded as this morning - and the sun is pouring down on us. It's getting uncomfortably hot and since I'm very tired from another sleepless night (Billie Stormzy remains an uneven sleeper, and more often than not we have to wake up to soothe him back to sleap one or two times a night) I can hardly stand it.

Right at that moment my mother calls me, and starts a long conversation about when she will bring the car (which we're borrowing for a few weeks this summer), whether she should bring a stroller for Billie Stormzy and other matters. I feel like my mind is melting fast under the sun and I can hardly keep my mind to the running conversation. In the end, I tell my mum that I really needs to go, much to her chagrin, and I manage to get myself out of the couch. Dizzily, I pay for breakfast. Up on the boulevard, where there's a slight breeze again, I feel much better already, and I put Billie Stormzy in his seat on the bike. Time to go and buy some groceries.

Also on Breakfast at the Beach: Jump back in time to when Rihanna Gaga and I visited this place in 2014