It’s about time

Our friends, L and M have, for a long time, been suggesting we join them in visiting the south coastal town of Eastbourne. They insisted that the sea was a colour not matched anywhere else; that the beach had the most interesting pebbles and stones; that the Towner gallery was a treat; and the experience of eating at the Holiday Inn Fish Bar – well, there were no words for that, you just had to do it.

We hadn’t been putting it off, but there never seemed the right time, what with all the usual family commitments and the inability of all members of my lovely family to actually all be out of bed and ready to leave at an early enough time to make it worthwhile.

But somehow, today, we did it.

The sea was a magnificent colour.

The pebbles were intriguing.

The Towner gallery was inspiring.

The Holiday Inn Fish Bar was certainly an experience (tinned peaches and cream anyone?) and it offered a suitably satisfying, reasonably priced lunch. The photo of Jenny’s banana split is kindly supplied by Hubby.

All in all, a lovely day.

On a Clear Day

Well you wouldn’t know now, as the mist is now creeping down over the headland and floating across the bay, but earlier it was a very conventionally summery day. Sun shining, ice-cream on the beach, much paddling by the kids, much sitting down and taking lazy photos by me. It appears they have a micro-climate here and it’s extra-ordinary how quickly things change. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Really must bring a towel next time

We were at the beach today again, but this time it was was Whitby, home of Dracula, Whitby Abbey and jet stone. We had already stuffed ourselves with lunch at Botham’s tea rooms and although the adults in the party felt the need to wrap up against the Yorkshire summer, the girls were happy with freezing their toes in the North Sea.

Breath

I took loads of photos yesterday. It was such a freeing feeling, just having the time to take as many shots as I wanted.

And I just have to post more than one today.

Home from the hols

Sorry I seemingly dropped off the planet, without a see-you-later or back soon. Our holiday in the Cotswolds came up on me very quickly and I found myself rushing to post on the Friday evening before we went. Wouldn’t you know, that was the evening that WordPress were updating their interface, so accessibility was limited and I ran out of time.

I had no Internet access where I was, which, in many ways was blissful, once I acclimatised to it. We had taken hubby’s laptop and dallied a bit with wireless facility at a coffee house in scenic Stow-on-the-Wold, but the connection was iffy and I resigned myself to missing a week plus of posts.

I can assure you I took masses of photos and, rather delightfully, Rosie did too. She’s really getting her photographer’s eye, seeing objects differently.

We woke up to snow a week ago, long since melted, but it was a magical start to our holiday. The girls didn’t hesistate to pull on their wellies and get out into the back garden.

I’ll be posting more pics from the Cotswolds over the next week. We had a lovely holiday, despite the fact Rosie came down with chickenpox towards the end of the week. Poor Rosie.

Busy Busy

Rosie on a zip line – Mum, pull me along.

Jenny on her scooter – I’m going right down the road.

Byron – Wake me in 6 hours

A little light

We have no heating at home. Or hot water. The boiler has something wrong with its secondary heat exchange (????) which must be replaced. It’s a three-hour job that our engineer couldn’t schedule until Monday.

The girls had swimming lessons today and we used the showers at the leisure centre after lessons to ensure the girls were squeaky clean and shiny.

On the way out of the car park, I got the girls to stop. We’ve passed this window thousands of time, and in fact I’ve taken pictures of it before, but I wanted to have a go of getting a shot of them with my new camera.

Through a Window

Gallery

I took the girls, and one of Rosie’s school friends, on a trip to the National Gallery where the staff run family workshops on Sundays and during the school holidays. It was an enjoyable afternoon, although Jenny got a little upset during the part of the session when we were sketching our ideas. I have to say I found the picture that we were basing our work on a little overwhelming myself, so I wasn’t unsympathetic to her tears. However, as I’d suspected, she cheered up once we were in the studio and had a paintbrush in her hand.

The gallery lies on the north side of Trafalgar Square, in the shadow of Nelson’s Column. After we’d finished in the gallery, we stopped to look at the fountains and the lion statues. I like this picture, because, although Jenny could step up quite easily onto the level that Rosie and her friend were standing on, Jenny’s arms weren’t long enough to reach the other side of the balustrade and so she had no way of keeping her up there.

A Moment Later

A moment later I realised I had left my notepad on the top of the car, forgotten in my excitement of capturing this shot. As the car turned a corner, it flew off and landed in the road. Luckily it survived its special trip.