Day 202 - Shell Seekers

There is something pretty special about taking your children to a place brimming with happy childhood memories.

Every summer without fail we used to go on holiday to a small cottage, a field away from a beautiful beach near Tyrella in Northern Ireland. There was no electricity, we had to draw water from a well and the outside loo was an old sentry box. I remember my granny cooking over an open fire; card games, swingball, sand in my sleeping bag and looking for shells. I LOVED looking for shells. I spent hours on the beach, walking along slowly with my head bowed, searching the tide line.

I must have talked about it a lot, because my enthusiasm seems to have rubbed off on my daughter. So much so that I promised I'd take her to my shell beach when we were over staying with my mum last week.

No amount of miserable weather was going to put her off: she waited by the door, bucket and spade in hand until everyone was ready to go. It was her dad's last day with us before he headed back to Afghanistan, so making the most of the grey day felt like the right thing to do.

We were lucky - we caught a small window of dry weather. Still cold though; but before you could say 'where's my jumper' she was running about in her cozzy.... 

The boys warmed up with some running..

moments later they were jumping waves....in their jeans. Daft loons.

Everything about the beach felt so familiar, and the shells were as good as ever. The kids helped me gather some up for a little project I had in mind. All the time I was scanning the colourful piles, searching for that little, elusive gem of the shell world...

...a COWRIE.

Finding one has always been special, and boy was I excited when I did! No playing it down in front of the kids. It was like finding treasure - I was yelling and waving it about....showing off basically! We found 12 altogether.

On the way back we stopped off to get a tube of glue. My plan was to see what we could make out of our shell collection - another thing I used to love doing. Now it does require a bit of patience, but worth it I think; and after a quick coat of clear nail varnish, this is what we came up with. 

Lovely little reminders of our day on the beach. 

Linking up with Country Kids over at Coombe Mill

and Suzanne's Oldies but Goodies!

Day 196 - Perfect surprise

I love that burst of instant, unbridled enthusiasm you get from kids when you tell them something exciting is about to happen. But (and it's a big but) timing is everything, isn't it. Tell them the surprise too early and you will pay. Their relentless enthusiasm can be like a kind of chinese torture - a drip, drip, drip of (the same) questions about what exactly is happening - and how many days, hours, minutes are there until it does. And you know you've brought it on yourself.

Lots of stuff falls into the 'exciting thing' category - playmates, sleepovers, holidays, a trip to Legoland...I'm sure you know what I mean.  My husband isn't that great at keeping a secret from the kids (you'd think he'd be better, considering what he does)  He has on a few occasions merrily let the cat out of the bag - then gone back to work, leaving me with a child about to spontaneously combust.

I've got a lot better at not spilling the beans, and I've had a big secret. A whopper.  

The kids knew they were going to Northern Ireland for half-term: what they didn't know was their dad was going to join us. 

It's all been very last minute - he was given a few days of compassionate leave because his mum hasn't been well. Thankfully she's much better.

Now my plan was to get through the journey to Belfast before I told them. But I couldn't help myself, I was itching to say something. 

I felt this huge wave of relief when I finally managed to pin them all in the car. And it just came out.

OH it was so wonderful to see their faces light up - SUCH a brilliant bit of news to be able to tell them.

A very, very special moment.

But I still had seven hours of travelling to go.

With hindsight I should have held off - but honestly, I was as excited as them.

We did have more than a day longer to wait than I'd thought - army transport can be pretty unpredictable. They were bouncing off the walls by the time he turned up.

Such an unexpected treat to be together again, and his mum was over the moon to see him. 

It felt 'normal' unbelievably quickly. I think that's because we know we've only got a few days and we're away from home and the routine. There is an advantage in meeting up somewhere neutral, although we have to shift around a lot here because both our families live in Northern Ireland.

I know it'll be ok when he goes, because we've not had the usual weeks and weeks of build up - and this time together is a bonus. That's the way I'm looking at it. 

We've had long enough to whip up the youngest into a state of hyper-excitement by promising her a trip to the beach.....and then we went out for a meal, leaving her to plague my mum.

'When  are we going Granny? Look at my swimming costume! I want to go paddling with you Granny! (lucky Granny) What colour are your buckets and spades Granny?Can we have a picnic?....

It was cold, damp and grey, but there was no way we were going to get out of it. And amazingly the sun shone....briefly. We had such a lovely time. Something for her dad to smile about on the long, long trip back.

And we're over halfway through now.