a favourite place

I love that we live where we do. Not necessarily our specific home or street, but the area. Because we are utterly spoiled with being surrounded by some beautiful parks and gardens and pretty spots, as well as being equidistant to the bright lights of London, and the calming air of the coast. We can be at either with 45 minutes, and I think it gives us the very best of both worlds.

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time, will know that as a family we are a bit obsessed with visiting the seaside. If we ever find ourselves at a loose end then the beach normally calls to us. We all seem to get a bit twitchy if we haven't had some sea air and some sand between our toes in a little while... especially the beautiful girl and me. We aren't fair-weather beach fans either. We are just as likely to head there in Winter as in the Summer, in fact in a lot of ways a deserted wintery beach is my favourite.

But there is obviously a massive charm to the seaside on a sunny day. And when we found ourselves with an empty afternoon and a blue sky, we were in the car and on the way to the beach quick as a flash. We headed to one of my absolute favourite beaches... with the pastel beach huts that have graced this blog on more than one occasion. I am obsessed with those beach huts, and I dream about one day owning one to call my own.

We had a lovely afternoon playing on the beach; paddling our feet, throwing stones out to sea, picking our favourite huts, collecting stones and shells and generally enjoying some fresh air and family time. Simple adventures like this are always my favourite. The sort that cost nothing but time and leave us wind swept with sun-kissed skin and sleepy children in the back of the car on the way home.

 ^ look at that happy "I've got sand between my fingers and toes" face

 ^ this one has beachcomber potential, she is constantly treasure hunting

 ^ our boys

 ^ she looks so grown up here; she definitely stopped being a toddler some time recently

 ^ it was colder that someone expected, but in reality it was actually super warm; warm enough for a swim if we'd had the right clothes

 ^ this one is definitely my paddling buddy

 ^ still shell hunting

 ^ he found some seaweed to pop

 ^ he was plotting how he was going to stop her putting all those sandy stones in his car

 ^ watching kites

 ^ "group hug"... the three of us have a bit of a thing about that at the moment

 ^ he's such a little beach bum