The beach

The spanish come here. They own or rent apartments and leave their chairs and parasols on the beach. Not many swim out into the waves to be lifted up and down by the swell, slapped on the back or in the face by the foam, made to laugh nearer the shore when the waves knock you over, but we did. And we laughed and swallowed water thick with salt. The sea was different to the salty turquoise water I drank a couple of years ago, but the mediterranean is my favourite sea. The current pulled us to the left and it was hard work swimming back so we were online with our towels on the sand, but that only made me glad. I like having to use my muscles to get where I want to be.

Even though not many came in the water, the beach was not crowded. Families were there, grandfathers and grandsons came down about four in the afternoon. People arrived after work, to sit and read. Older women, bikini clad, walked in twos through along the shoreline, talking. People sunbathed. Ate. A swimwear clad businessman told his daughters to be quiet as he spoke endlessly on his mobile. They were french.

The Red Cross lifeguards sat on their high perches, there were blue boxes enclosing toilets, rubbish bins, children's play areas, volleyball and football nets and clean, clean, sand and sea.

Some Valencians let us borrow one of their parasols and after that, every day, they smiled, nodded, waved. Did they want to talk? The son had spent six months working in a hotel in Stratford. He looked happy with his mother and sister and cousins in Bellereguard for the month.

It was cooler at the beach with a coastal breeze than inland. The sea was not as warm as we expected, but once in, delicious. And we found we could park, pull out and return home without having to reverse the car. What more do you want?