How to have a preferrably forgettable day at the beach

Start with a beautiful little five year old girl. Ideally the little girl should not have been entirely 100% health wise lately and if possible, should have had a slightly broken but not entirely awful sleep the previous night. Your own sleep should also have been broken resulting in you waking with the mother of all headaches.

Take two paracodol.

Enjoy a relaxing and rather lovely morning at home and pottering in the garden, rush at the last minute to chuck your whole world into a bag.

Take another two paracodol.

Take the bus. Take the mid week bus in the middle of the day to a small seaside village. Take the bus commonly referred to as the bouncy bus, the old bus or the hole in the hedge bus when both you and the little girl have been known to suffer from travel sickness.

Arrive at the beach when the tide is well and truly in, leaving yourselves only stones and rubble to play in.

Take one 500mg paracetamol.


Explain to small child the idea of "sea glass" and "sea pottery" to make the whole tide being in thing more fun (and possibly profitable too)

Marvel at how quickly the little girl, having heard only the word glass, can fill a bucket with the arse ends of empty Old English bottles on what appears at first glance to be an immaculate beach.

Walk a long way.



Stay long enough for the tide to be well and truly out.

Bring crap to eat instead of real food, because you had lunch at home and have a lovely dinner in the crockpot, so you'll only need snacks.



Stay long enough for the sun to begin setting and a very slight chill to rise in the air.



Bring everything apart from the kitchen sink because you figure that when nature gives you grit betwixt your toes, she also provides a conveniently located (if a smidgen on the cold side) body of water to wash off in and a blanket because of how glorious the weather was before you left the house.

Build a sand castle with sand too wet for castle building.

Walk down to the water's edge to wash off and half way there tell the little girl to watch out for crabs.

Carry the little girl and the rucksack containing your whole world and the bucket and the spade and two pairs of shoes the remainder of the way to the water's edge.

Repeat only travel in the opposite direction.

Fail to take into consideration the fact that slightly sleep deprived and not 100% health wise little girls will be more acutely aware of the chill in the air.

Arrive at the car park just in time to get a signal on your phone for what you realise to be the first time since you arrived and receive a text from your husband saying he will be one hour late to the beach.



Sit down on the grass and add all available layers to the little girl, including wrapping her in the towel and then spend the remainder of the hour looking at the lovely car park with its freshly painted lines while the little girl snores peacefully in your arms.

Take two more paracetamol. Come to the conclusion that someone has swapped out the meds for tic tacs.



Wish you'd stayed at home where you could be snoring peacefully too.

Hope the little girl forgets about this day at the beach and remembers all the lovely times we've had at the beach in time for our summer holiday. A full week camping ..... at the beach!

Fun in the Sun

We're just not cut out for this kind of weather in Northern Ireland. Don't get me wrong we appreciate it and are very grateful (if anyone in particular is listening) we're just not used to it. Especially when it sneaks up on us. The rain just stopped one day last week and the temperature rocketed and hasn't dropped since.

The poor child is suffering from a bit of heat exhaustion. She spent Saturday playing in the above ground swimming pool my mum mistook for a paddling pool. She woke at my mum's house on Sunday, stripped off her jammies and ran nekid out to the pool again. My mum just about managed to wiggle her into a swimming costume and force feed her some breakfast.

for some dinner. I know, we actually ate out for a change, but I just couldn't face the thought of cooking. I've cooked outside all week because its enough of a headache to cool the house at the minute without adding any more heat to it. So fish on the We then had a gorgeous afternoon at Knockinelder and Quintin Bay, before heading to Kircubbinbarby, salad and bread has been the order of the day, every single day.

Monday we played in the garden and took a few short walks and on Tuesday we spent over four hours at the duck pond and then on the way home Toots bought herself a petite stitch junior sewing machine in a charity shop so that she "could be like mummy". Sometimes she's almost too cute.

I did have photos planned for this post but my micro drive has gone walkabout. I will deliver as soon as it turns up though.

Wednesday was another day for running around. We had to go food shopping in the morning and with a very active four year and the obvious lack of a driving license it turned to be a nightmare, but we managed.

Yesterday we vegged in front of the TV in the morning and replanted all of the seeds destroyed by frost earlier in the year in the afternoon. Toots even planted up a little kit garden my mum bought her a couple of months ago. Its the type with a few packets of seeds, a little seeds tray and cover and a rock hard block of "magic" compost which needs to be reconstituted with water. She had a lot of fun with it to. The whole kit only cost £2.99 and had a pirate theme so inside the box, along with the necessary bits and pieces were a pirates eye patch, three flags to mark the position of her seeds and a treasure map so that she could mark an X at the spot she planted each seed. Even the seeds are themed. She planted monster sea gourd, some money plants and sea holly. I really hope something grows because she checked on it countless times yesterday and she's been outside twice this morning already to see if anything has grown yet.

She's also learnt how to open the side gate which is amazing because even I have trouble opening that gate at times. It weighs a ton and the lock is really stiff. It does mean that there has been no shortage of chase scenes around here lately because the side gate leads to the driveway which leads to a pretty busy street.

Guess what I'm doing today?

Yep, adding another lock to the bloody gate. I'm all for independence, but I'll be damned if she's going to play in the street like some little four year old urchin. When she's older fair enough, but not yet.

My house, my rules kid!

So we're a bit tired and worn out round here. I can already feel the sun burning the back of my neck through the window and it's not even 9.00am yet.

Its going to be another long, hot day.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside.

Oh don't look at me like that.

Yes I'll admit, I'm drawn to the water. I can't help myself. It's a sickness really.

It's a handy thing that we have such beautiful beaches here.

This is Knockinelder.






See that, not another soul in sight. That's because Knockinelder is on the invisible part of the Ards Peninsula. The bit below the convenient little red line.

Nobody seems to know it exists.

It's my favourite bit of the peninsula.




We collected Toots from my mum's house on Sunday afternoon and headed out with no real plan of where to go. She fell asleep in the back of the car so we just kept going along the full length of the east coast. She eventually woke up, desperate for the loo just as we were passing Kearney.

We pulled in to the tiny little village and even though it was a full two days ago now, I think the husband is still there. He completely fell in love with the place as soon as he set eyes on it, with its tiny little white washed cottages, perfect little picket fence enclosed gardens, all beautifully manicured and filled with flowers and its private little cove beach, he's even more determined to win the lottery now:)

The tide was out when we arrived and the sun was beating down. We could feel the heat on our faces and the sand was warm under foot.




But none of that changes the fact that we're dealing with the Irish Sea.

If you don't know, the Irish Sea is pickling cold. All. Year. Round.

Not that any of that stops of four year old.

She had already fallen in to the water face first by this stage and was completely soaked, but still that didn't stop her.

I was perfectly content to sit on the sand, with my hot cup of coffee and my camera merrily taking pictures like every good mother should.

But then the husband got stuck in.

The bugger.

Quietly egging my on. Calling me a chicken. Telling me the child had more stones than I did...

So, as promised and without any further ado.

I give you Leanne, the big ass chicken.

Running like a demented person back out of the Irish Sea.

Because the child does in fact have bigger stones than me.

I should have grown out of this kind of behaviour years ago.

And its disgraceful that the husband can still get a rise out of me.

Twenty Minutes from Everywhere

Its how we can spend the morning at Nendrum Monastic Site in what feels like the back end of nowhere and the afternoon in Crawfordsburn County Park on the coast of the Ards Peninsula.

Its also the reason why I love living in Northern Ireland. I think its why almost everyone loves their life in Northern Ireland, because no matter where you live chances are you're roughly a twenty minute drive from everything you could ever need.

In twenty short minutes I can be spending time with family. I can be shopping and lunching and catching up with friends in the heart of the city. I can be at the beach. Actually I can be at any one of about a dozen beautiful beaches.

Or I can be at the top of a hill with nothing but farmland and tiny villages as far as the eye can see.

Hell, I can't even see my house from here...




We spent a lazy morning taking in the sights at Nendrum Monastery. I've visited the monastic site a few times but this was Toots' and the husband's first time. Of course, it didn't take her too long to start exploring.




And the "No Climbing" signs might just as well have been in a different language




I could spend hours walking around Nendrum alone. Those monks sure knew who to pick a location and even today the views are still beautiful.




For the life of me I couldn't get the whole monastery into one photograph. There simply isn't enough land in front of the building and while I love you all dearly I wasn't about to stand thigh deep in Strangford Lough for a good photo. Some people will, but not me.






It doesn't matter which old relic we visit or how many times we explain to Toots what the building is or what it was used for, as far as she is concerned it is a Castle.

Then she runs around trying to find dragons.

You thought I was going to say she runs around playing princess, didn't you?






Nope, no dragons here!





We had a lovely picnic at the lone picnic table near the visitor's centre before Toots started to show signs of complete and utter exhaustion. We climbed back into the car and a twenty minute nap in the back seat later we were at the coast.

A trip to the beach means one thing and one thing only to Toots.

Trying to bring Northern Ireland and Scotland and little bit closer to each other.

Yes, she spends every second at he beach throwing stones into the water.




It doesn't help that daddy encourages her to do. Even hand selecting the rocks for her.

She'll get there one day, I'm sure.

It doesn't matter that I've pointed out that a perfectly good boats goes back and forward countless times each day.

Lets see where I else I can drag the poor family over the holidays.