Getting the Summer Holidays off to a Good Start - Part I

It had always been on the to-do list for the Summer Holidays to spend a week near Brighton where my husband's parents live so that the children could have the chance to see their grandparents and start making the sort of memories that will stay with them for a lifetime. After consulting our diaries it transpired that there was only one week that would actually work for everyone (my in-laws have a fairly hectic social life centred around their shared love of sequence dancing) and that was the first week of the holidays.

My husband booked the accommodation and I hurriedly organised the packing. The weather was abysmal and my mum rolled her eyes heavenwards as she wished me a happy holiday and hoped we might get a little bit of sunshine. Neither she nor I could have imagined what an amazing transformation there would be from grey miserable skies to clear cloudless blue. I have never had a holiday in Britain where the sun shined constantly.

Clambering in the sand dunes at Camber Sands under a beautiful blue sky

I had packed jumpers and raincoats. We had to go shopping once we were there to buy suntan lotion and shorts. I also bought a whole lot of outdoor toys at sale prices that would keep the children amused.

We stayed in a very comfortable holiday cottage on a farm in Herstmonceaux, East Sussex. The children took a liking to the horses in a nearby field ( I had wanted to write 'neighbouring field' there but thinking of it as a neiiigh- bouring field of horses was becoming an obstacle!)

The holiday worked out perfectly. We were able to spend lots of time with the Grandparents as we'd hoped and also managed to visit beaches, take a bike ride along the cool, leafy Cuckoo trail and spend a day at the Bentley's Wildfowl and Motor Museum featuring two things that my little boy loves - duckth and carth (yes, he has developed a very cute little lisp!)

With only a couple of days at home to unpack and pack again for our next week away, I was glad to have done some of the laundry already. As lovely as it was to enjoy the sunshine at the beach, I was especially appreciative of how useful it was in getting the washing dry!

The pebble beach at Eastbourne