Saturday

Yesterday was just amazing weather for February, really warm and sunny and just lovely.

After a long lie in we debated whether to go left, right or up for the day – clearly down is restricted by not all four of us having current passports so France being off the agenda! 😆 Right would have been a trip towards Eastbourne, up would have been Crawley way but we are going to Tilgate on Wednesday anyway so we went with left. I’d heard rumours (backed up by web searches) that there was an ice rink in Littlehampton so wanted to check that out and there is a small museum called ‘Look and Sea!’ there which I’d seen advertised and been meaning to look at further for a year or so, so we thought a nice sunny day was perfect for that.

We parked up and were greeted by a load of swans who gather round the slope into the sea used by the RNLI lifeboats based there. They were very friendly and although the children didn’t get close enough to touch I reckon they’d have been up for a stroke. Scarlett still very clearly remembers her run in with a swan a couple of years ago but showed no fear anyway.

We walked along the marina to the beach to look around for the ice rink and found signs saying it had been closed down :(. That’s a real shame as ice skating is something both children have expressed a wish to do this year and the nearest one is well over an hours drive away and bloody expensive, meaning it will be a day out treat rather than something we can do with any regularity 🙁 Maybe I’ll encourage roller skating along the seafront as an option instead!

We had half an hour or so sitting on the beach with the children playing in the sand until hunger (and my fear that it was only a matter of time before the lure of the sea became too much and we ended up with soggy children!) drove us back up to the marina again.

There is a row of fish and chips, ice cream and gift shops, about half of which had opened. There were queues at all of them but one had by far the most people waiting and proclaimed itself to be award winning so I joined that queue which Ady and the children watched the fishing boats and got two large portions of chips. Scarlett and I shared one (complaining that we didn’t have enough vinegar but not quite caring enough to walk across the road and battle the queue to the counter to get more) while Ady and Davies shared the other portion. Nothing quite so nice as chips by the sea 🙂

which in the spirit of being beside the seaside and it just being so warm and sunny we followed with ice creams 🙂

Judging by the very little amount of ice cream management Ady and I had to do I have to conclude we may well be redundant by the time they next have ice creams – landmark moment indeed 😆

We watched the swans and some people crabbing for a while and then went into the Look and Sea! place. It was pretty cheap at just £3.50 for the four us of but probably wasn’t worth any more really. There was a second floor with a few activities such as fitting birds into their right habitats to make them sing, a couple of puzzles and games and some interactive touch screen tvs with various displays. I think it is one of those things that could be great with just a bit more but is either unfinished or they’ve run out of money as it has an air of incompleteness about it.

The very top floor had great views though and we went out onto the balcony to see properly, out to sea, over the downs, Arundel castle and all across Littlehampton. We talked about the various buildings we could see and then went inside and climbed to the very top where they had informtation sheets about some of the places you could see, so Ady and I looked at those while Davies pretended he could see through the telescope that I refused to put a pound into and Scarlett wanted to know more about the lifeboats.

We left there and came home via the supermarket for a few bits for dinner. The children had a long bath while Ady and I watched a Masterchef online that we’d missed last week and then we all watched Primeval before D and S went to bed. I stayed awake barely long enough to watch Thank God You’re Here before having a very early night indeed.