Familiesrecommend Blog

Tuesday

What an unusually soggy but fun day.  I don’t do shopping.  At home we live about half an hour from Meadowhall shopping centre near Sheffield, and are about the same from two outlets, but I can’t remember the last time I went to any of them.  However, for a family that don’t do shopping, we seemed to spend a lot of time today at shops spending money on ourselves, and on gifts for family and friends.  As forecast, it was raining in the morning, so we packed Micro’s waterproof, and headed off to Padstow, arriving just before 11.  We went to the different shops we needed to go to, and some we didn’t.  We looked at lots of sale stuff in different shops, and Micro got a T-shirt that, apparently, is really cool and just what he needed.  Hubby had been into on of the shops earlier in the holiday and seen a shirt in their sale, so went back in to day to buy it, but they didn’t have any left in his size.  They do, however, have a shop in Rock, a ferry ride across the Camel river.  While we were waiting to see if there was the right size in Rock, I tried on a shirt, and a pair of trousers.  Shirt fitted, but I had a choice of right size wrong colour/ right colour wrong size.  By luck, the Rock shop had the right size and colour for both of us, so the plan was to have a light bite to eat, then ferry across to Rock, have a look round, buy the clothes and then ferry back and look round the Lobster Hatchery.

On the ferry, the heavens opened, so we had a wet walk through Rock trying to find the shop.  Hubby asked at a pub, to be told it was just up the road on the right.  We walked as far as ‘just up the road’ should have been and with no sign of any shops and the boys getting wetter and more fed up, I decided to take them back to the RNLI shop, and let hubby carry on with the clothes hunt.  The RNLI shop was great, and we were allowed to look round the lifeboat, as long as we didn’t touch anything as it was ready to go out to see, if needed.

Macro spent money on all sorts of things, from a folding cup to a multi tool, and Micro bought a pad and pen, and poster.  We then sat outside under shelter waiting for Hubby who turned up quite soon after.  Apparently the shop was another half a mile from where we left him.  Think we made the right decision.

Back over the ferry and round to the Lobsters.  Macro and I went to buy some fish for tea, and let Hubby and Micro go and see the lobsters, sorry, logsbers.  However hard we tried to get Micro to say ‘LOBSTER’ he said ‘LOGSBER’, so the name stuck!  We looked round two years ago, and when we came back to the flat Micro had a nightmare about a giant logsber, but this time he really enjoyed it, understood what was happening with the baby logsbers, and got lots out of the look round.  He spent his money on a couple of souvenirs, and then they met us at the car.

Home for tea, and then the boys and I went down to the beach for a walk and some stone skimming, and then met Hubby at the pub for the now compulsory drink and pool.  Back to the flat for a bit of TV and sleep!  A strange but good day.

Monday

Possibly our last sunny day of the holiday if the weather forecasts are right, so we spent the day on the beach, making the most of the sunshine.  After his initial excitement and confidence in the sea, Micro went off the sea very quickly after the rainy day last week.  It seemed such a shame that he’d got like that, so I decided to get him happy to go in again, even if it was just paddling and playing rather than boarding. 

We started by going down the edge of the sea, filling up the bucket, and then Micro dipping his toes in there – which he found quite funny.  Then, as Hubby took his boat out, we went and took some photos of him, standing at the edge of the sea.  We then walked to the edge of the bay (the tide was in, so we couldn’t walk all the way round) in the surf, and back again.  His confidence was returning, so back to the beach tent for lunch – ice cream and crisps!

After lunch and more playing Macro went back in the sea, so Micro and I went for another walk along the beach to see how far we could get now the tide was going out taking his net so we could go rock pooling.  We played all the way along the beach, finding ‘islands’ that were either patches of sand still surrounded by sea, or rocks that we could climb on and call ‘Island Mum and Micro’.  We could get much further, although not still right round the bay, but we investigated caves, found fish, limpets and shrimps (not shrinks!) in rock pools, and had a really good ‘together’ time.

We walked back along the beach, and it was just beginning to rain very lightly.  Micro was OK with the rain – another sign of his improved confidence – and he ran to see if we could find Macro, and fell over with a ‘SPLAT’, and all of his body was covered in sand.  We joked that he could climb over slippy rocks and climb up steep rocks and not even wobble, but on flat sand…….

We saw Macro still playing and boarding in the waves, so went back to the tent and Hubby.  We told him what we had seen, and how one of our islands had sea snails, so could have lived on that one and eaten sea snail sandwiches (!!), and another had hairy limpets (sea weed growing on them), and about the hairy rock we had seen.

By this time it was nearly 3, and we had to pop to the shops before tea, so Micro took Hubby down the beach to show him our islands and rocks, and I went to take some pictures of Macro in the surf before coming in.  We eventually persuaded Macro to come in, and then we packed everything up, and left the beach.  With the weather breaking, it might be another year before we are boarding and playing on it again.

Shopping and then home to change, and to the pub for tea!  We sat in the alcove that we were told last year was haunted, and had a lovely meal – everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.  The boys got very sad before bed being torn between wanting to go home, and sad that there are only two full days left of the holiday.  Micro doesn’t want to wait until he is six and 2.5 quarters before we come back (looks like we’ll be coming back again next year then!), and Macro wants to go home and see everyone.  Oh well, lets see what tomorrow will bring.