EscuBelle

After hte heatwave that hit the Netherlands during the previous weeks, it's a relief that the weather has cooled down a bit. And another relief: Scheveningen has calmed down, too. Of course, living in a place like this, one has to accept that the summer will bring tourists and other people seeking sun, sea and sand, but in the six years that I have lived here, I've never experienced anything like the last few weeks. Because of the ongoing pandemic, a lot of people are now staying closer to home. Combined with the extremely hot weather, this meant that Scheveningen was flooded with crowds, not only from the Netherlands, but also from Belgium, Germany and France - as I've understood, there were many young people from these countries who were attracted to the Netherlands because of the Covid-19 restrictions being less severe than where they come from. 

The result was a lot of noise, drug abuse, cars looking for parking spaces, overcrowding of living areas (a lot of people in Scheveningen rent out rooms, run bed and breakfasts, or spend the summer away, renting out their own houses to tourists - including two of our neighbours) and just a generally tense atmosphere. I remember one night, after realising that there had now been sirens sounding continuously for hours already, turning to my partner and saying people were probably going to get killed soon. A few days afterwards there was, indeed, a knife incident between gangs from Rotterdam and Amsterdam meeting at the boulevard, that took the life of one of them. In fact, I was happy to get away from Scheveningen, as I spent several days in Groningen last week with my daugher - every year I try to have a few days with just the two of us. 

Now, my partner is off with our daughter, showing her the city that we both grew up in - Zwolle - while I stay in Scheveningen with Billie Stormzy. It's Friday and we're cycling to the beach, passing houses with posters protesting the recent overcrowding of Scheveningen, with slogans like "Bewoners pikken het niet langer" (Locals will not stand for it anly longer). We call at EscuBelle, where everything seems very quiet right now. There's a few people sitting here and there, sipping coffee or tea - that's it. I decide to sit down at a few tables beyond EscuBelle's terrace, located on the beach itself, as Billie Stormzy is often happy to play in the sand. There's a comfortable couch there. I put down Billie Stormzy on the sand and sit on it.

 Nothing happens for a while. There seems to be no serving personal and I start wondering whether I should have maybe announced myself first at the counter - so I walk back there, Billie Stormzy on my arm. However, inside the beach club it seems to be even more deserted than on the terrace. I hear a radio playing somewhere in the kitchen, but see noboday. I walk around a bit, clear my throat (than realise that throat-clearing, just as coughing and sneezing, are suspect sounds nowadays that can make people very wary of your presence). After a whole, a cook appears, all smiles and friendly gestures. Whether I can sit down somewhere, I ask and he replies that sure, sit down anywhere and someone will come to me. As I leave the beach club, a waiter - dressed in regular clothes and therefore somewhat difficult to recognise as such - is coming my way and repeats what his colleague said: "sit down anywhere, I'll be with you in a moment."'

As he approaches me, he asks whether I want to eat something and I tell him that yes, I do. He disappears again and reappears with the menu, but I tell him that I've decided already - I'd checked the menu before coming in and saw that beside the regular breakfast variations of which you can get almost everywhere around here (it's called a 'continental breakfast on EscuBelle's menu), this place offers an English Breakfast. Seizing the opportunity for some variation, I tell the waiter I want that one. "Ah, then I didn't need to bring you the menu," he says and pockets it again. "And do you want anything to drink with that?"
"Yeah, tea please."
"English Breakfast, I assume? To keep it in line with the theme of the breakfast?"
I'd have taken English breakfast tea with any breakfast, but I nod and say that'll be great. 

Billie Stormzy is not very interested in the toys I brought for him to play with. Instead, he crawls around on the sand, occasionally stopping to pick up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. He's in a cheerful mood, stopping by at the couch where I sit every once in a while for a cuddle. He's started to have a very broad range of sounds: hums, babble words, shouts with which he'll communicate his feelings and opinions. 

Tea is brought and the waiter tells me that he advices me to have my breakfast on the terrace. I assume this is because of cheeky seaguls, but he tells me it's because of the wind that will spoil my breakfast with sand, while on the terrace I'll be protected from that by the large windows surrounding it. I tell him I'll do that then. 

When breakfast is ready, I pick a table and sit down while the waiter puts down what looks like a treat. Bacon and eggs, a fried tomato covered in cheese, white beans in tomato sauce and a large sausage and slices of toast. It tastes exactly like you'd want a good English breakfast to taste and I'm thankful for EscuBelle having this on the meny. At first Billie Stormzy is happy to sit on my lap and munch om some toast while I eat the breakfast, but soon he wants to crawl around again. 

EscuBelle has looked more or less the same way it looks now for as long as I can remember: the colours for the furniture and most other things are black, brown and grey against white walls, with lots of purple touches everywhere. The thing that distinguishes it, is its laidback atmosphere best descibed with the untranslatable Dutch word 'gezellig'. 

While eating my breakfast, I keep half an eye on Billie Stormzy, but for once he seems to be staying away from danger. Normally, he has a knack for getting himself into tricky situations; he also hates it if something he's got in his head - like climbing on a table, using a chair to walk around, or grabbing the cord of a flagpole - turns out to be less successful than he'd like. His life is a series of frustrations, often caused by being able to realise he could do a lot that he actually can't. Now, however, he contents himself with climbing on a concrete slab that holds a parasol, raising himself holding the parasol, then crawling around a bit again before repeating the routine. After a while, an English family with a child slightly older than him arrive and he curiously starts peeking at the child. He is, however, mostly ignored by the object of his attention.

When I've finished my breakfast, I ask the waiter for the bill. It's time to leave. The house is a complete mess - I find it difficult to take care of Billie Stormzy and keeping the house tidy at the same time - and I want to fix at least some of that before taking the train to Zwolle tomorrow. There, Billie Stormzy and me will join my partner and daughter and drive to Groningen to spend one last week before the summer holiday is over and schools start again.

Also on Breakfast at the Beach: Jump back in time to when Rihanna Gaga and I visited this place in 2017