Sunday 1/8/2013 – Homeward Bound

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2013, 365, Beach, childhood, children, family, holiday, photoaday, photography, postaday, summer, UK

Our last day in France – a leisurely breakfast in the hotel room and then down to the beach to spend most of the day.

The kids were happy to amuse themselves on the playground, in the sea, building sandcastles and generally burning off some energy.

We stopped for crepes before heading to the channel tunnel for the train home.

After crepes we discovered an ice cream stall with more flavours than I have ever heard of – so they had ice creams too.

I love that my children share with each other – and other people – as a matter of course – and with a smile on their face.

30/8/2013 – Birthday Boy

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2013, 365, Beach, birthday, boules, childhood, children, family, France, home, photoaday, photography, postaday, summer

Dx’s REAL 6th birthday today started with an early morning trip to the beach – we had it to ourselves which was wonderful. We took one of his presents with us to the beach – a boules set from his grandparents.

We soon discovered his boules skill didn’t translate to sand (cue temper and tears from “Mr Sore Loser”). Luckily we found a patch of grass and he won all three games there! He does have a real skill when the balls are able to roll.

We had a great morning at the beach and even by lunchtime when we left there were only a few more people on the sands.

In the afternoon the gite owner Mark gave Dx and Lx a birthday ride in the trailer of his mower. They loved it and got the big tour through the wilder parts of the garden.

More birthday cake in the evening!

Wednesday 28/8/2013 – An Englishman’s Home…

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2013, 365, Beach, childhood, children, evening, family, France, home, parkour, photoaday, photography, postaday, summer

The weather was still overcast today compared with last week but we went to the beach for the evening anyway. Gx and Matt made an impressive sandcastle mansion…

Meanwhile Sx encouraged the little two into more parkour jumping and climbing which resulted in Dx hurting his foot and having to be carried back up the hill to the car park (next morning it was fine but tonight it caused him a lot of pain – and caused us all to cut short the evening).

Tuesday 20/8/2013 – The Children

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2013, 365, Beach, children, family, France, garden, holiday, home, lake, nerf, photography, postaday, sand, summer

Meanwhile in other news…the kids are having a great holiday. We only have internet in some areas of the garden – so this is known as “the internet tree”. The morning was taken up with more nerf filming and computer time. Dx and I played together for a while and decided I am no good with a gun!

Mid afternoon we headed for the lake beach hoping most of the crowds would have gone. They were still there but the kids had a great time building a sand sculpture of a crocodile and messing about in the water.

We had a picnic tea and headed home about 6 – having decided if we go later in the day, 6pm is the time to arrive, not leave. My preference would still be to get there in the early morning – before the crowds and the heat of the day. It will just be a cae of getting the children moving first thing. The lure of croissants usually works!

 

Tuesday 23/7/2013 – Beach Babes

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2013, 365, Amsterdam, Beach, childhood, children, cocktail, family, food, Holland, home, meal, photoaday, photography, postaday, UK

Today in Amsterdam we were off to the beach! Just 20 minutes by train and we were there. Wall to wall sun loungers, brown bodies and sand.

 

We broke up the general horizontal relaxing with (at various times) beers, sangria and pancakes.

 

As the day came to an end my brother joined us for dinner at the beach. A wonderful restaurant serving THE most delicious champagne cocktails

(although Lx was luckily just as happy with her coke!)

We had to leave before the sun had truly set to catch the last train home – but it was still beautiful.