My wife wants one last swim in the sea, so we park the already packed car at the Italian beach bar, where I order an espresso next to a group of young children in swimming trunks, neuter still, the largest with a tenner in hand, who are crowd around what to them is the most enchanting object on earth: the blue plate with the pictures of ice creams.
Excited voices, piercing fingers, choices that are made and changed again, an old boss who willingly dives into his freezer again and again, and in the end only takes a shot at the prize. Then: the impatient tearing of the wrappers.
In the immutability lies the reassurance. Soon, on the way to their parents under the umbrellas, one of the children will drop his ice cream in the sand. Soon, somewhere above Switzerland, our carefully cultivated holiday illusion of utter carelessness will slowly burst. Not bad at all, just a nice moment to wallow in nostalgia for the now.