Postcards from the Puckmobile – six...

Yes, it was unmistakably the smell of the sea - salt, seaweed, sand, sunny days and something else – magic maybe?

“It’s the smell of the sea Luna.”

“What’s the sea? Is it a Dead End?”

“Well it depends.” I said. “The sea is water”.

“Like the sink?”

“Kind of… but bigger.”

“Like when you have a bath?”

“Bigger.”

“As big as the pond?”

“Much, much, bigger. Imagine water for as far as you can see and then beyond. When you get to the sea the land ends, you can’t go any further; so it is a dead end but it’s also a way of going beyond the land to find new places.”

“Can we go in the campervan?”

“No, we’d need a boat.”

“What’s a boat?”

Let’s talk about it in the morning Luna. It’s late. I’m going to pull off the road, park up, and get some sleep. We’ll take a look at the sea and talk about boats in the morning.”

“Bigger than the pond… that’s big.”

“Goodnight Luna.”

But she didn’t reply, she was already asleep.

The sun woke me up at 5am, streaming through the windscreen. I’d spent the night puzzling just how we’d arrived at the sea. The drive down Dead End lane hadn’t been anywhere near long enough to take us to the coast, but here we were by the sea, the sound of waves crashing on shingle, a lone gull’s cry high in the air above. It felt peaceful, but despite that I was confused and full of questions; just how had we got to the sea so quickly, where exactly was this beach, why were we here, where was everybody and how did I get back on track?

And where was Luna? I looked around the van. It didn’t take long, it wasn’t that big, soon realising that Luna wasn’t in the van at all – she’d let herself out through the open window and was running around on the beach.

“Weeeeeeeeee, the sea, the sea, look at the sea.”

She was everywhere at once, running and jumping, skittering and sidestepping, impossibly pawing at a bright red kite that darted and buzzed, caught up in the wind, taught string singing high above her darting head. Sometimes, she’d stop to watch something flash across one of the shallow pools that were scattered amongst the sand.

I stepped out of the van and Luna came running towards me, flying into my legs in her eager excitement.

“Look at the sea. It’s so big and wet and there are moving things in the water and it looks blue but isn’t and it makes my nose tingle and… what’s that red thing up in the air?”

“A kite.”

“How does it fly?”

“The wind picks it up and carries it away.”

“So what stops it floating off?”

But before I could answer yet another of Luna’s questions, a woman’s voice answered from behind me: “Because it’s tied to my finger with a string.”