The Beach Is The Only Place To Be

There are probably those who live away from Mallorca who think enviously of those who do live on the island and of their heading off to the beach on a daily basis. It is a rather false impression.

While there are those who do make the beach a daily ritual, and those for whom the whole day at the beach is the ritual, there are plenty for whom the beach is a rare event and some for whom it is an alien place. And not just those who live away from the coast.

When some who first come to Mallorca, as in a permanent way and even if they are meant to be working or running a business, it can be easy to fall into the trap of feeling that life is just one long holiday. Legion are stories of those whose business went belly-up because they were toasting their bellies on the beach while packing away a cold Saint Mick or several - day after day. Life may be a beach in Mallorca, but it is also a bitch, if the beach becomes all-consuming.

Look around in some bars, restaurants and other establishments, and you may well see some pasty faces. How can this be, you might think. All that sun, and little by way of a suntan. The other day, the delightful Swedish girl at the Laberinto maze said that I didn't have much of a tan. "I haven't been to the beach yet this year," I replied. It's not as if it's far away. More or less just around the corner.

Well, I did go - yesterday. For about an hour. Old blogotees among you might recall my reminiscing about a previous career as a beach bum and about beach life as it once was. You can never take the beach out of the boy, but is the man who is tired of the beach, tired of life? No. Just gets restless. And it's not holiday, after all.

Perhaps that's it. Go to the beach, and there are loads of people on holiday. And you're not. It seems like a bit of a fraud, something to be a bit guilty of. There again, the beach, as the heat really kicks in, as it now is, is the only place to be in the afternoons - for a while at any rate. But as a place to get some freshness. The beach becomes functional as opposed to romantic; it's like having an air-conditioned room that you can take yourself off to when the atmosphere, only some metres inland, becomes stifling.

Perhaps also it's the case that familiarity breeds familiarity. The same old beach. I need to re-connect with the beach, re-discover the beach, which may well mean not going to the same beach. Yesterday was quite alarming. I recognised some who are there every year, some who I know. A German family, for example. It's quite disconcerting to note the way that the children have grown. But they're still the same, as they were last year, two years ago, the year before that.

That is almost certainly it. So many beaches and so little time to go to them. But like all the other attractions of Mallorca, the natural ones, that is, the tendency is to just slip into the familiar and the easy. And there is another impulse to break the familiarity trap. Not going to the beach is as much of a crime as going to it every day, all day. In my book, anyway. I had this awful feeling a couple of days ago. Summer's been here for some time, and I'd not been to the beach. I got that line from the Style Council - "the long hot summer's just passing me by". That would never do. I'd thought so much about it, that I dreamt about it. October was here and the beach had gone.

No, you don't spend your days on the beach, but to not go to the beach ... Why be here?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.