To believe that no one can have ever possibly enjoyed the beach?

[Happybeard]

I've avoided the beach since taking my then 4 and 11 year old who are now 8 and 14. I had thought that four years was long enough to have recovered from the trauma and was actually looking forward to it but having now been here for an hour can't think of a single thing that is remotely enjoyable... The stickiness, the sand EVERYWHERE no decent toilets, the sun making you sleepy but you having no chance to close your eyes in case your children drown. Plus am hideously over weight this time so am fully clothed.
Am looking around and everyone else looks miserable too. Why do we do this???

Lepa, save your frothing for something that matters. This doesn't warrant you being quite so mean.

Combust! Making love on the sand

I love the beach as long as I don't have to sit still on it for more than twenty minutes. And as long as it isn't hot. I don't do heat, or abroad.

My ideal is Whitby in winter, or Cornish beaches in Spring and Autumn. HATED childhood holidays where we were expected to spend the whole day on Bridlington beach - it was as boring as hell.

I'd like a beach hut - that would do me. Then I could read in comfort and paddle when I wanted.

DH and the DC like beaches, I'm not a fan. I put up with up as they like it. I will play with them for a bit on it, but DH does more as it's him that likes it. I take a book, usually. I play with them the rest of the time and he doesn't, so it's his chance to spend time with them, as I see it. It's not being lazy.

We don't go often though, and when we do we pick massive huge expanses of sand where DS can play ball and we don't feel hemmed in. We don't go to ones that have cafés, just bring our own stuff.

As for holidays abroad, yes prefer a pool. Although I am not a fan of lying around or swimming in a pool all day. We tend to pick somewhere with a pool and have a car so we can escape and do something interesting after a few hours. Or we take bikes and cycle, again more interesting. Sitting on a beach for 12 hours 7 days a week - I would die of boredom.

Sitting in my beach hut in the rain, reading the Sunday papers, drinking tea, bliss.

My DC would be mostly happy to play in the beach all day, but they would also be happy to do other stuff. Life isn't about doing everything for your children sacrificing your needs all the time.

A holiday should take into account the entire family's needs, IMO.

Yes, Lepa, they must be awfully deprived; On holiday, at the beach, sun, sand. I don't think they need your pity.

Toilets? Doesn't everyone wee in the sea

I've just had a weekend at Black Rock Sands it was lovely. You can take your car onto the beach. So you can take all manner of crapola with you! Cool box, big bottles of water to rinse feet off, my daughter had a siesta in back of car to!

There was an ice cream van going up and down too. Kids loved every minute of it

And lose those hang ups about your weight and get a swimsuit. Is there not a pool where you are staying?

There are people of all shapes and sizes on holiday. You only will draw attention to yourself, by being fully dressed when no-one else is.

OP - You didn't say "abroad is worse". Zaz did.

Maybe I've just got the hump because we couldn't afford a holiday to a "crappy Spanish tourist beach" this year and think that those who have should be grateful that they have. Maybe that makes me a misery guts and not in the spirit of how you intended your post to be. Who knows.