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The past few beach days we have had in beautiful Cornwall are typical Great British seaside days.
There are some sunny beach days in Bahrain where we are lucky enough to be offered sun loungers, parasols, and in some locations towels, food and beverages. There are, of course, exclusive beach resorts along the English coastline but the majority of the Great British Seaside comes with only optional stripy deck chairs and a very expensive car park which never accepts notes or offers change.
The frustration of arriving at seaside car park, finally managing to find a parking space and then realising you don’t have a hundred one pound coins in change, or thereabout, for the parking meter, is second to none!
Then you have to get the contents of the packed boot onto the beach which means lots and lots of carrying, normally a several mile hike over cliff-tops to the beach, plus wetsuits to combat the freezing ocean, boards to catch waves, spades, buckets and nets for rock pooling and crabbing. Then there are the chairs, the windbreakers, towels and cool box.
You carry all this onto the beach and then decide the best place on the beach is obviously one of the furthest away. Off you trek again, with handles and plastic cutting away into hands, necks and backs.
You then find your ideal spot and make base camp - this is normally the time that one member of the family needs the toilet and that will be located back where the car is, in some kind of concrete bunker.
Setting up base camp can also be challenging, the sun that was blazing away on the hike to base camp is now hidden between dark looking clouds and the wind is getting up.
As you battle with the windbreakers the parasol, meanwhile, has inverted and flown off the beach into an innocent holidaymaker who was fast asleep. Finally, you settle down to the beach activities. The kids surf, rock pool, play boules, frisbee or football and you build up an appetite for sandy sandwiches, a 99 with a flake, hot fish ’n’ chips straight from the box and you manage successfully not to be gouged by a passing seagull.
Then the sun comes out between the clouds and life is good.
You don’t miss the luxury of Bahrain’s five star beach amenities, the sunlight now is bouncing off the sparkling sea, the kids are playing and you think there is nowhere better than the Great British Seaside … and then it starts to rain.
Fortunately for one couple, the McLaren, regarded as the ‘national car of Bahrain’ because of the kingdom’s investment fund Mumtalakat’s major stake in the UK company, offer a quality build, as well as the beasts being stylish and fast.
Editor Stan is on summer vacation back in UK and heard how one of the supercars came unstuck on its way to the Goodwood Festival of Speed after being reduced to a smoldering wreck after a run-in with wildlife.
The driver of the vehicle and his passenger, who escaped death in the fiery crash, has said he was trying to swerve to avoid a badger that was in the road.
The car plowed through a telegraph pole and demolished part of a house. Driver Lee McClurg, and his wife, Alex, were knocked unconscious by the impact but managed to scramble free in time. They stood watching as the car, a McLaren 570S with a showroom price tag of BD75,000, burnt to the ground.
“Unfortunately, at that time in the morning, there’s still lots of wildlife about and we were driving down a stretch of road with woodland either side of it,” said Lee. “There was a badger that suddenly darted out in front of me and I swerved to avoid it. I was trying to protect the animal but also to avoid any damage to my car.”
Badgers are short-legged omnivores and the Whisperer suggests that owners of McLaren cars in Bahrain best avoid stray desert dogs or menacing mongooses.
