beach | anounceofmedotcom

I apologise for neglecting my blog for the last two weeks, this is mainly due to the surge of activities brought on with the Half Term hols, but also because we have been on holiday in Wales. Me, hubby and the kids, along with my parents, decided to holiday in this pleasant land as we really like the country and because we have friends that moved there and we haven’t seem them in years.

Now we have a dog I set about searching for dog friendly accommodation and along with our not so Spring like weather, find one which had a capable heating system and preferably a woodburner! We found a idyllic holding of four converted barns on a plot in West Wales, this meant we had the use of two cottages side by side and plenty of surrounding fields fit for our dog. The holiday was booked and as usual my packing was left to the last minute as I desperately tried to dry out clothes on the radiators an hour before leaving and debated whether to pack clothes I haven’t worn in years just because ‘I might get a chance to this week’.

After we crammed our car and my Dad’s car full of all weather clobber we set off on the 5 hour journey to our holiday home. It soon materialised that achieving it in 5 hours was a little ambitious with three children with seemingly weak bladders and a car sick dog (who knew). Still I always find Service Stations an interesting experience and if I ever get round to writing my book I will definitely scour them for characters as you see all walks of life in them.

It’s lovely isn’t it?

The cottages were lovely and apart from an bit of an overbearing landlord who lived next door, we settled in quickly. The countryside was stunning, the empty beach was nearby and our days were filled with outdoorsy activities without me having to nag the kids to ‘get some fresh air’ as they willingly wanted to explore. It was a shock to my system though and a realisation that either I live in a very polluted place or find it hard to relax, as while I was on this holiday I seemed to contract Narcolepsy. Of an evening I felt compelled to check to see if someone was crouched in the corner of my bedroom shooting tranquiliser darts in my direction, as no sooner had my head hit the pillow I was out cold. Thankfully this was also the case for the kids after their active days we had undisturbed nights.

All weather beach days

The nicest thing about our week away was seeing the children so happy. With zero Wifi connection and useless mobile reception my eldest was on Bin Weevils cold turkey for the week. At first he struggled with the lack of computer time but as his addiction slowly waned he rediscovered simple pleasures alongside his siblings. We hit the beach in many layers to play hide and seek in the sand dunes or go crabbing and eat ice-creams even though I was unable to feel the tips of my fingers without gloves on. We went for long country walks feeling like the dwarves from The Hobbit as we stumbled across waterfalls and spotted wild seals and dolphins as we scrambled across rocks. My youngest son was a miniature Bear Grylls as I constantly removed him from trees and begged him to stop doing ‘wild wees’ as it became the only way he wanted to go in the end.

As the week drew to a close, we were all disappointed to be leaving to go home. I haven’t slept nearly as well since coming back, the kids are back to begging for more TV and computer time and I have a mountain of washing to deal with. But none of us are pining as much for our holiday home as our dog Chester. As a energetic 1 year old Labrador he flourished with the ability to roam our surrounding fields to his hearts content. He developed a love of sheep that was weirdly touching at times and he was introduced to ice-cream. Since we have returned, he walks around our garden and looks at me as if to say ‘Is this it?’. As we all slip back into our former routines I swear he looks longingly out of the window wishing he was back there. I will leave you with his personal highlights.