As a child some of my happiest memories are of holidays in Cornwall, on its wild northern coast, home to Arthurian legend and some of the best beaches on the planet.
My favourite game was to spend the day building a central castle then reinforcing it in every way I could think possible with protective walls and channels, reinforced by rock, driftwood, seaweed and the occasional seashell.
I knew I was working on a clock. At some point the tide turned and the distant sound of breakers got nearer and nearer. The first tentative assaults were easily brushed aside by my fortifications. But wave came on wave and eventually the ramparts started to tumble despite my frantic efforts to, literally, stem the tide.
Finally I would be left standing on a pathetic heap of sludge. Defeated yes but proud as the last bastion to fall, the onrushing water by this time having made far further inroads up the beach.
It has just struck me that I am now building sandcastles again. It's not the tide this time but Father Time. The walls are made of muscle not sand. And it really isn't about the eventual victor for there is no doubt about that. It's just for the fun of the challenge.
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