Friday

Our last full day.

It was a beautiful sunny morning and the children all wanted to do beach and Shell Island based stuff. They went off with the inflatable boat to sit in the sand dunes and write ghost stories. Marcus and Michelle went off to the onsite shop and Ady and I went to the beach. We had a lovely couple of hours collecting shells, paddling and then sitting on the sand chatting and drinking the bottle of beer and cider we’d brought with us.

The Red Arrows did a flyby at 130pm which we watched. I was most entertained by a man on the beach who stood up and announced ‘It’s the Red Arrows’ in a commentators voice just as they flew over 😆

We went back to the campsite to find Davies had been considered missing although he never felt he was and the others had been worriedly looking for him. He had a lot of freedom this holiday and did quite a bit of roaming. But he is nearly 9, clearly felt safe himself to do so and at no point ever felt lost, scared or worried so I was fine with it. I think there were a few times when he was keen to have some space and time away from the group too so he just quietly took himself off to do so.

We needed food for the evening and something for lunch so we headed off to Barmouth, a nearby very seasidey town to the Co op, a giftshop for Scarlett to get a lucky stone, an old fashioned sweetshop to buy quarters of jelly beans and sherbet pips and a cafe for the most delicious roast beef and onions baguette I’ve ever had. We came back to the campsite via the petrol station to fill up for the return journey and a butchers which had a big sign outside proclaiming them the Gold Award Winners for Best Sausage in North Wales for some gold medal winning sausages for dinner.

Ady dropped the children and I off at the shop so we could buy icecreams and walk back to the tents while he had his pot noodle he had bought and was desperate to have while we were camping. That was nice, it does feel right having one child holding each hand and walking along chattering to them :).

Back at the campsite we headed to the beach for some rockpooling and crab hunting. We only got a couple of little baby ones but did find loads of starfish and sea anaenomies. We released them all back into the rock pools again and left as the tide got higher and with last wistful looks at the sea that showed no dolphins we went back for our fantastic award winning sausages for dinner.

It turned out to be a very, very rainy night. Ady and Marcus chatted in the Outwell porch, the children all sat in our car watching Michael Jackson’s MoonWalker but Mich and I sat under our umbrella, huddled together, drinking and chatting, determined to milk our last night for all it was worth 😆

The evening ended rather sadly with Scarlett managing to burn three of her fingers on the gas lamp in the tent. Davies thinks she deliberately put her hand on it after Ady told her not to touch it as it was hot. I think she does like to test things for herself and actually Ady is a bit of a one for over exagerrating things so the kids don’t know how much of what he says to believe so I wouldn’t be surprised. It was quite nasty and I had that fleeting moment of ‘oh shit’ when I realised we were all over the limit for driving, Scarlett was filthy dirty, tangle haired and full of sand and it was about midnight so really not a great time to be needing A&E. We used calpol and icepacks and she slept in with me while Ady went in with Davies but she had a really bad night, waking several times screaming.

At one point just as it was getting light Ady had to go out to the car to get another ice pack. I was sleeping in my pants as my pjs were still in the car from showering earlier and couldn’t see thanks to no contact lenses, I was debating whether slapping her could be excused as bringing her to her senses from hysteria and Ady managed to be so firm with the snapping to activate the cold pack that he snapped the packaging too so Scarlett had to hold her hand inside a carrier bag with it. Another of our finest parenting moments 😉

Last half an hour or so aside it was a very nice last day with plenty of beach and view time :).