A beach weekend in Winter 2014/2015

Feb. 16, 2015, 3:02 a.m.
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Public

We often go to the beach for a weekend to fit around football. During the footie, Rich goes to the game while the girls and I have fun.

We drove down to Christchurch on Friday night and woke up early on Saturday to have a delicious breakfast - a long, leisurely, relaxing breakfast.

It was overcast and a little windy on Saturday so there were some relatively large and powerful waves; wearing rain gear, we ran from the waves at Southbourne beach…

The girls decided to dig holes in a big pile of sand and bury stones in it.

Then we went back to the sea, one wave was too much for Lila!

She was laughing so much! And her feet were enjoying a hot tub experience all of their own (once her body heat warmed the water up).

We went back to the hotel and ran a hot bath for the girls while I rinsed their clothes and hung them up to dry, later on we drove Rich to the football and attempted to drive into Bournemouth. It was insanely busy so we turned around and headed over to Boscome. Boscome is the sporty area of a seven mile beach which stretches from Southbourne in the east to Sandbanks on the west. The seabed has been manipulated to make it a good area for surfing, and since our last visit some bouldering walls have been added. The girls had fun climbing them.

A short while later we were heading back to the car in order to find a food shop for picnic purchasing when Lila spotted some steps leading up the cliff. We all started to run up, stopping to explore nooks and crannies as we went, until we reached the cliff top path.

The girls and I found a Sainsbury in Boscome and ate sandwiches on the drive back to the hotel. Once there we snuggled up in bed together and watched t.v. until Rich let us know where to meet him. He had got a train back to Christchurch so we picked him up at the station and drove to a Harvester pub for dinner. It was heaving because of being Valentine’s day, but they squeezed us in and Rich, who had not eaten since breakfast, ate way too quickly which induced indigestion which led me to the exciting thought of a dark stroll on the beach, to help settle his stomach. With excitement, the girls skipped down the slope to the sand, talking about how they felt, amazed at how many stars were visible. We walked for a while before I realised that I hadn’t felt the sand between my toes yet. Of course, when I removed shoes the girls followed suit. The sand was freezing but I felt alive, running and shrieking at the temperature!

On Sunday morning, after a second amazingly leisurely breakfast, we packed up, checked out and went to Poole where the worldwide enterprise Lush originated. It’s Poole shop is still in the same place that it was when it started all those years ago. Of course I visited!

The harbour was bustling with tourists, people selling boat tours to nearby Brownsea Island. There was a group of people with their Harleys, revving up and leaving. One man selling fresh fish and crabs and so many boat moorings which once held fishing boats, now filled with multi million pound luxury boats. At the far end of the harbour are still small boats and piles of lobster nets. Rich and I sat down to watch the girls as they played on a small sandy area.

From Poole our intention had been to drive to the tip of Sandbanks and take the chain ferry across to the isle of Purbeck. Sandbanks is the most expensive real estate area of England, the houses are huge and varied in style. From an art deco style house, designed to look like a boat, to a brand new wood clad house of three stories with enormous windows. There were cubist houses, Spanish style and houses that defied pigeon holes. As long as a house wasn’t small or traditional it would fit in perfectly with the locality.

The traffic waiting for the ferry was long and slow so we had a change of plans, nipped into the other lane and drove back to the Sandbanks beach.