Thursday photo #328

Isn’t it amazing how much better everybody feels for a bit of sea air? We felt so lucky during lockdown to live in a beautiful area where we could walk every day. We were also incredibly grateful for our garden and the opportunity to get out for a swim in the river once things started to ease. The one thing we did miss though was the beach. It has been a long time coming but we finally made it to the beach this week. It was rather a relief to get back in the sea.  

Breaking up a journey without using services

I’ve never been a huge fan of service stations. They are definitely a necessity but usually serve overpriced food and are generally not particularly pleasant.  Despite that, on long journeys we usually end up stopping once or twice in a service station. With things so different at the moment though, we decided to try a different approach.  

In the past we’ve sometimes managed a short stop at a National Trust property to break up a journey. We don’t usually spend long there and only get a brief overview of the place. This time, we planned a little better.  

We broke up our journey at National Trust Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire. The heavens opened just as we arrived so we ended up eating a picnic in the van. After that though, we braved the showers and went for a walk, a rock climb and an ice cream. It was a beautiful place and made our journey feel a lot more bearable. We’ll certainly be doing the same thing again in future, it was so much more pleasant than a service station.  

Beach days

It was lovely to meet my friend Jenny and her boys on the beach this week.  The children all get on brilliantly and spent lots of time digging in the sand and bodyboarding.  They never seem to tire of playing at the beach.  

Of course, my husband and I had to get into the sea as well. I had a bit of a swim and we both spent some time bodyboarding. The waves were ideal for it, not too big so they wouldn’t have been great for surfing but bodyboarding was brilliant fun.  

The surprise of the day was how immensely keen Bubbles was to get on the bodyboard.  First she followed us out into the sea to play, leaping up to catch the tops of the waves as they broke.  Then she cottoned onto the fact that we were having far too much fun on the board.  She made multiple attempts to get on but couldn’t quite catch the wave.  I think she’d better stick to paddle boarding for now.  

Thursday photo #328

The girls had a brilliant time at Brimham Rocks. Apparently they were rock surfing here.