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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Beach etiquette...?

111 replies

AtHomeDadGlos · 19/07/2017 19:23

Right. At the beach the other day, lovely weather. Quite full and filling up but lots of spare room.

Someone comes and pitches their wind break and two fuck off huge umbrellas two feet in front of us, ruinning our view.

Even worse, they pitched it around some of our stuff - we had to ask them to pass it to us.

This isn't on right? Thankfully we were leaving within the hour as our daughter needed a nap, so we did the British thing and didn't say anything.

Beach etiquette...?
OP posts:
DeadGood · 20/07/2017 19:30

"I get this in supermarkets - I stop by the most unlikely item in the furthest corner of the shop (organic lark noses in brine or some such) that no-one is going to need to buy in the couple of seconds it takes me to check my list.

I can guarantee someone will stop, shove past my trolley and stare at the shelf before buggering off empty handed!"

OH MY GOD it's not just me then! Jesus, I tuck myself away into the snuggest little corner to tie my shoelace, and some fucker will always materialise out of the woodwork and ask me to move.

MothertotheLordsofmisrule · 20/07/2017 20:09

Apologies pigsDOfly

DeadGood and me will refrain from our lark nose barricading activities in future.
WinkGrin

jmscp2015 · 20/07/2017 20:17

I have found my people.

People breathing down your neck in queues - just step back will you!
Pushing in front of you in supermarkets, or having a leisurely chat with their neighbour taking up all the aisle with their trolleys. Look aghast at you when you push past.
Parking directly next to me when I have purposely chosen an empty part of the car park.
Setting up and extensive sodding castle in front of me on the beach and allowing their children to chuck sand all over me...

I'm slightly glad it's not just me though. Grin

pigsDOfly · 20/07/2017 20:18

Thank you Mother.

Original poster
AtHomeDadGlos · 20/07/2017 22:33

I've had the queue breathers before, and those who push past you when they 'only' have a few items...erm, sod off! (Unless I've offered in which case crack on).

Actually had another weird one today at the beach. Narrow path, chap with dog coming through. I wait patiently, he stops with dog so it can sniff around. He then doesn't say thanks or acknowledge me. Prick. On two counts. One for the stopping to let his dog sniff around and two for not nodding thanks.

OP posts:
bridgetreilly · 20/07/2017 23:16

"no matter how often I ask him not to park next to the only car in the car park he still keeps on doing it."

When I got my first car, a lot of years ago, I did my first motorway drive the next day. Stopped half way for a breather, parked miles from anyone in the car park so I didn't have to worry about that as well. Came back from the service station to find someone had parked right next to me.

Panicked. Forgot how to reverse. Scraped the side of his car. (Left a note, paid for the damage etc.)

But still, I bet he thinks twice before parking right next to an isolated car now. There's a reason some people choose to park way out on their own!

AreWeThereYet000 · 20/07/2017 23:31

Everytime I'm walking down the path with my pram and someone is walking the other way I always move to the side and not just a little bit more like practically scraping down the side of the wall or may as well be in the road so the other person can see which side I've moved to - why do they always then decide that's the side they are going to pass me by on?! Winds me up!

Littledrummergirl · 20/07/2017 23:49

We were on a beach a few years ago when the dc were small, we had put up a small beach tent and the kids had dug a small moat in around it and our towels.
We threw the towels inside the tent and took the dc for chips for lunch-arrived back at the tent and had to ask some people to move their chairs so that we could open the tent and get inside!

They moved quickly when the dc asked several questions - why are they near our tent, are they trying to steal our things? (No, they're just rude)
Why have they flattened my castles? They are mean. (Your quite right darling).
Can we play frisbee? (Of course, you need to practice your aim! )

I also had a row with someone who used our windbreaker a couple of years ago by sitting the other side of it and allowing her dc to throw sand over it covering us. I don't mind the proximity as long as you don't encroach in my enjoyment.

MrsOverTheRoad · 21/07/2017 00:52

AreWeThereYet that's jusrt rude! I was taught "the most vulnerable person gets the wall side"

So if there's a child or an elderly person approaching me, I move towards the kerb so they can pass...same with a pram! Who makes a person pushing a pram move towards the road!?

AreWeThereYet000 · 21/07/2017 07:08

MrsOTR I was brought up the same, but it's not that so much that phases me, just why walk directly into my path when I've moved out the way arghhh haha

RubbishMantra · 21/07/2017 08:30

And why have they manned their windbreaker fort with grinning loony clown faces?

Staceypreston32 · 21/07/2017 17:34

Some idiots did this to us in Cornwall last summer so it must be a cornish thing

Lovemusic33 · 21/07/2017 17:45

I love the beach and go a lot but I hate it in the summer due to people invading my personal space, kicking sand as they walk past and being too noisy. A couple years ago we went to a very popular beach in Dorset, my dd who is autistic stepped on a child's sand castle ( not really done on purpose), the kids spent the rest of the afternoon chucking sand and my dd and making rude comments and I got very upset, in the end we packed up and left.

This week we were on a beach in Wales and a man decided to get changed in the middle of the beach, was totally naked with his manhood on show. It's funny how people behave on the beach compared to other public places Grin

OlennasWimple · 21/07/2017 18:02

This what people who sit next to you on the bus, even though there are plenty of completely empty seats, do when they go on holiday

catsaresomucheasier2 · 21/07/2017 18:05

I got ridiculously pissed off and anxious at this post, because it's exactly the kind of thing that happens to me on a beach, or anywhere else where I want to be on my own. I'd have framed out at the offending idiots. It's like when you go to a public loo, and there are like 20 other loos, all empty. You go to end one, them some MORON who either wants to listen to your bowel movements or wants you to listen to theirs, goes I the stall next to you. Gid, I'm getting wound up just thinking about it 😄😄😄😄

catsaresomucheasier2 · 21/07/2017 18:06

Freaked out, not framed out. Wtf is wrong with this pigging phone tonight 😡

queenofthemountains · 21/07/2017 18:18

Are you at Porthmeor in St Ives? Its unbelievable the fortresses people build there with their windbreaks. It is an amazing beach though.

rightwhine · 21/07/2017 18:26

I just wonder what on earth runs through these peoples minds.

DagenhamRoundhouse · 21/07/2017 19:03

You get this in car parks. My Dad pointed it out to me eons ago. You can park in a remote corner with nobody nearby and guaranteed someone will park next to you within 10 minutes! Try it.

Housemum · 21/07/2017 19:09

DH did that at the outlet shopping place at Swindon - v proud of new car we'd had all of 4 days (secondhand but v nice and low mileage posh car). So he parked right at the back of the car park, away from the footpath and the entrance. Went back to car in pissing rain and there was a scuzzy blue car next to it. Only when we got home and it was dry did we see a scrape of blue on the bumper Angry

corlan · 21/07/2017 19:26

You get this is swimming pools. 3 empty roped off lanes, but you had to come and swim in my lane. Why???????????

morningconstitutional2017 · 21/07/2017 19:31

Yes, it's odd isn't it that you can be sitting on a large and quiet beach with bags of space and some people come and plonk themselves much too near? It's as if they are scared to be too far away from other folks. If you want peace and quiet you're the ones who must move. And to block your view - that's simply inconsiderate. The human race never ceases to astonish me.

MrsJAMMFraser · 21/07/2017 19:38

I was on a virtually empty beach with toddler DS. A man appeared carrying a baby in a pushchair and plonked it down just in front of us. I thought he was just having a rest but then the rest of the huge party of adults and children arrived. They were practically flicking their rugs (and sand) in our faces as they spread them out.

I was utterly mystified. But being British I resisted the urge to commit violence with the parasol spike, and meekly collected our things and moved further down the beach.

coffeespoonslife · 21/07/2017 19:39

I'm with you, OP. When we were kids my Dad called these people bodysnatchers. Loudly.

camtt · 21/07/2017 19:42

last year on a crowded beach in Barcelona, I was overseeing two DCs in the water when I found myself surrounded - top, front and sides - by a large group of young Spanish people. Lovely young women all bronzed and in teeny bikinis, flicking their hair, loud young men prentending to josh each other but really vying for the girls attention. There I was, forty something with my ugly hat, big white kaftan-type thing over my unrevealing swimsuit and fat white legs. I had clearly got so old and ugly that I'd become entirely invisible!