I had promised myself to have a look for a long time. Each time when I played golf (with much more enthusiasm then competence) at the Parque de Floresta course in the Western Algarve I had seen the sign ‘Monumentos Megalíticos’. I imagined this to be a pocket size Stonehenge and wanted to check it out. When I first came to Portugal, now about 5 years ago, the sign was a rusty, barley visible thing encouraging the interested tourist to not even try. In the past couple of months this sign has been replaced by a proud, clear and new sign saying ‘please visit me!’. I was just planning to do that. Golf finished I turned west from Budens to Vila do Bispo and turned left at the nice new sign. The road lead through rural Portugal, towards the ocean. Narrow road, with passing places where oncoming traffic is supposed to wait. A rule as meticulously ignored by Portuguese as it is obeyed by tourists. And yes, after about 5 minutes there was the sign for the Monumentos Megalíticos, only grass three feet high obscured everything AND no parking place to stop. I drove slowly and the German couple in the (German!) car behind me followed even slower. Was this everything? Not entirely, by driving slowly and only giving the road 25% of my attention (which was probably 10 % more then one of the oncoming Portuguese drivers gave the road as he was wedging a phone between shoulders and chin AND trying to light a cigarette and driving way too fast). I managed to spot one of the stones standing upright, just above the grass. Luckily I drove on, the German couple turned around, not a mean feat on the narrow road. I drove on, planning to have some lunch on one of the beaches I surely was going to encounter. And yes, after another 5 minutes I found a small, cute beach. The road just touched the beachfront, thrown there as if by a slingshot, before it curved inland again. Having parked the car, I found a spot on the rocks, overseeing the beach, but nicely protected from the at times too enthusiastic Atlantic wind. I always thought that cars need to be black, dark blue, metallic silver or if you want to splash out perhaps white; but not bright orange. That is the car they arrived in, a big bright orange car from a solid German make, station wagon so they could take plenty of stuff. Dutch licence plate. The parked their car and the two children, clearly beyond boredom after a long drive, shot out of the car, only to be pulled back by a sharp voice: ‘Stop, wait until daddy is ready.’ Their master’s voice had spoken; they stopped in their tracks and waited next to the car. Then he got out of the car and he looked like a man who had imagined himself to be a proud soldier. Defender of God, queen and country, conqueror of stuff, commander of people and things. The first thing he did after getting out of the car was to over see the field of battle. Having deemed the beach suitable (I was the only other person there) he started to bark orders as to who should carry what. The station wagon contained lots of stuff, chairs, umbrella’s, cool boxes, towels etc. The children were packed up and dispatched to the beach and then I saw mum trying to get out of the car. To say she was overweight would not do her justice. When she was standing, she looked like one of these drooping candles, the layers upon layers of fat drooping off her body. He ignored her and marched off, locking the car with his hands full of more stuff for the beach. He walked over to a completely different spot as to where the children had walked and commandeered them to bring the stuff to his spot. Their faces looked as if they almost had given up the thought that beach could be fun and that is when their car alarm went off. Father dropped everything and ran back to the car, only to find the wife desperately trying to open one of the doors and the shaking had triggered the alarm. She just said one word ‘Magazine’, he understood, opened the car and she took her magazine and walked to the beach. She had a kind face, but the walk to the beach was clearly a struggle, an uneven path, rocks, and sand and although she had nothing to carry she struggled. Her lord and commander ignored her and went back to his spot. Although the beach was completely deserted he had chosen a spot rather close to the waterfront, a spot between two rock formations, admittedly, out of the wind, but with incoming tide the water would be wedged between the two bits of rock and could become a problem very fast. He started giving instructions to the children about what to do, interspersed with ‘leuk he, het strand, vind ik altijd toch zo gezellig’ (Nice the beach, I always really enjoy it). The children pulled faces that indicated that their idea of fun was slightly different and not lugging all mum’s and dad’s stuff around an empty beach. Mum was now halfway between car and the selected beach spot. She stopped, a soft rock on the beach, and then in a high pitched voice said: ‘Johnie, Johnie, the tide will come in and it will all get wet, why don’t we sit over there’. She pointed to a sensible spot, also out of the wind, but with a bit less of a view and definitely in no danger of being flooded. Johnie did not answer her, but talked to the children. ‘What does you mum know about the beach and about tides?’ He did not wait for their answer (not that they looked like they were preparing one) and said: ‘Nothing, she has not been in the army, she has not looked at the tide table, she knows nothing. This is our spot, here we will stay’. And with this he started building what the Dutch and Germans really like to do on beaches, a little home away from home: windbreakers and small tents were put up, cooling boxes put at strategic places, chairs and tables put out; in other words a small village got erected at my feet. Mum did not seem to have Johnie’s trust in his expertise and shuffled towards me, to find a seat on the rocks, but first she got herself a towel and a little something to eat from the little family village. I happened to be reading a dutch book, so when she came closer there was no escape but to answer in dutch when she greeted me. ‘He always does this, treats every outing like a military operation. In a minute he will want to build sandcastles with the children and these are not fun sandcastles but solid constructions. If the children don’t join in for a while he gets really up himself and we have had to leave several times after just having been 10 minutes. They have learned, they play with dad and when he gets completely engrossed in it they do their own thing. You can’t talk with him about it. I have been in the army he says. I know how to run things. Well he was in the army, a conscript, he was so useless they made him the kitchen help and he has never gotten over that. He always talks in mysterious ways about his time in the army so people don’t ask and he thinks that they think he did something in Special Forces. But I know they know he is a bit of joke.’ She spoke all this in one breath and then sat there in silence and yes, Johnie and the children were making a sandcastle. The children, clearly not yet trained to perfection, tried to have some fun with the sand, but Johnie quickly intervened and said: ‘No, that is not the way to play nice (They were tipping little buckets of sand rather randomly to create a wall that was definitely not straight); it is only fun when we do it properly’. And yes, she was right (Amanda was her name) after about 10 minutes, the children disappeared and started to have some water and sand fun in a shallow puddle a bit further away and Johnie was working very hard at his construction. ‘He is overcompensating you know. He does not have a nice job and look at me, I am not the prized possession he dreamed off. Sometimes when we are alone and there is no audience, he is my cuddly boy again’. Why I needed to know such details is a mystery to me. I don’t even know that she was speaking to me, she was looking out over the sea and her Johnie. Tide was coming in fast now and what she had predicted out loud and what I had thought was going to happen: their little village was going to get flooded. ‘Johnie, Johnie, the tide is coming in, we need to move the food and chairs’. ‘Can’t you see that I am busy, I put it all safe, nothing is going to happen!’ He did not even look up, he was building a big construction, digging canals, building walls, sweat was dripping off him, here was a man on a mission. Amanda got up, saying: ‘I’d better rescue the car keys’. And so she did, car keys and wallet, safely in her hands she shuffled back to me on the rocks. The water is now gently lapping over the chairs and the cooling boxes and the children have noticed this too and run to dad. But it is too late, because of the position of their gear, between two solid rock formations there is a surge of water coming in engulfing all their stuff and then withdrawing again taking most of their things with them. Johnie seems to be woken up by the screams of the children and can only observe how his carefully positioned village is being demolished by the unrelenting sea. A Dutchman defeated by the sea unheard off. His face that moments ago had been full of concentration turns to pure shock and then to my surprise, he starts to cry, wailing: ‘I can’t do any thing right, I always get it wrong.’ Amanda, sighs, ‘It is mamma time again’. She shuffles towards him, all the time making soothing noises, that he is after all her hero, and didn’t he make a fine castle, now it is time to go and find a nice restaurant. She will drive, no worries, she has the keys and the wallet. Dad is still crying and now the children play their role and each take him by the hand and walk towards the car, next to the car they turn and look back at the beach, just in time to see the waves demolish Johnie’s castle. ‘Even my castle is in the wrong place.’ Amanda looks at me and winks.