SUMMER IN ST. FLORENCE WITH COASTAL COTTAGES: SAUNDERSFOOT BEACH

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We’re back to reminiscing our holiday with Coastal Cottages in St. Florence again today!  The closer we get to the Easter Holidays, the more I enjoy looking back through our photos.  Family holidays are the best times – even if you feel as though you need to recover when you’re home from one.  I  never quite understood what my mom and dad meant when they used to say that.  Now, with three boys I completely understand.  I’m not sure how we survived a month in Walt Disney World when I was pregnant with Hero, and with a four year old Jensen and 20 month old Lyoto!  Anyway, remembering last Summer’s holidays really makes me smile.  Having my parents there with us made the holiday that much more special – and our boys adore them being with us on adventures.  
There’s a lot to be said for waking up on a sunshine-filled morning.  We were ready for our trip to the beach and made sure we were there before breakfast even.  It was empty and just perfect.  If I lived here [which I frequently wished I did throughout the week and for months afterwards] then I would be at this particular beach so very often.  Saundersfoot beach has everything you need for a day of relaxing – ice cream, sunhats, yummy breakfasts, crabbing buckets and sand shovels…and even fish and chips for lunch on the beach.

We parked up and started our beach day with breakfast at the beach café across the road, and several cups of tea for me.  Grandad enjoyed his coffee with Granny and then we popped into the shop next door to grab some buckets and spades before we hit the sand.We seriously could not have picked a better day for the beach!  This almost never happens to us.  Most of the memories I have of being on the beach in England as a child involve windbreaks, towels and sunglasses to keep the sand from blustering into our eyes.  Not that we didn’t have fun – it just could have been a bit warmer – or not rained, say. Haha.  Today though, the sun began shining early and no sooner had we decided where to sit than the boys were rifling about for their buckets and nets and heading down to the waves.

Yes, there is a photo of me.  In my hat.  I bought this from the beach shop because I know myself far too well now and sunshine without a hat for me = sunstroke.  The sun only needs to wink at me and I’ll be suffering later.

I also learned that day on the beach that if I were to be stranded on some desert island with my boys, they would keep us alive.  They caught crabs, spotted jellyfish even managed to trap little fish in their bare hands.

 Hero decided he would have a jog across the sand – we called this the Ready Brek photo because of the way the light surrounded his body.

When we’d finished rockpooling for the time  being, and as people began to flood the beach, we found a spot to set up camp and enjoy building sandcastles.After a bit of playing on the sand, Hero fell asleep for his afternoon nap in a four poster makeshift beach bed with t-shirt canopy – and the bigger boys got down to some serious sand-crocodile making with Grandad.  When I was little my dad used to make me and my sister all kinds of beach creatures and contraptions – my favourites were the boats and curled up sand cats.  Jensen and Lyoto took great delight in recreating my honeymoon pictures from Gatorland in Florida by posing with their own reptile and laughing at how funny it was.
After we’d buried Lyoto in the sand and eaten as much ice cream as possible, we headed back to Rosemary Cottage for our tasty barbecue dinner.  Lyoto collapsed on the sofa as soon as he was through the door, and snoozed for at least an hour which is so unlike him – beach life really wore him out!  Jensen settled into the study armchair which became his favourite for the warm sun streams through the window.

The barbecue preparation started off well – but by the time we’d cooked everything we were so hungry that I never got to take photos, sorry.  It was very tasty though – and I ate two of those huge corns and all of those asparagus in the photo.   As we prepared the boys decided to teach me how to play croquet. Apparently they are experts having seen Alice in Wonderland and explained that these mallets were in fact supposed to be flamingos.  Naturally somehow I was getting it all wrong – and it turned into more of a polo event with piggybacking, but according to the judges I definitely lost.

After our barbecue it was getting pretty dark and so we all headed off to bed, ready for our next to last day in Wales.  Holidaying is such hard work!