I’m so lucky to be living at the beach now and I love walking along the shore with my spaniel Marlo. We walk along the reserve and out onto the oyster-covered rocks where we can gather some fresh seafood for dinner. The beauty of our shoreline relaxes me, encourages me and kind of defines who I am now. All my life I have searched for that quiet place. I’ve always been flat out busy with raising kids, working and being involved in a thousand other things too. I am now tired of balancing 500 things on my plate and as I slowly alter my life I am finding a little more time to reflect, relax and enjoy my surroundings. The energy and peace I gain on the shore is reviving.

The pleasures too when the grandchildren come to stay are too numerous to count. But here are some of the fun things we do with the littles.

 

First we check the tide. I like taking the grandies out when the tide is out best. We gotta put on our gumboots so we can splish and splosh in the sand and water. The gumboots also protect our feet from the sharp oyster shells on the rocks. Wandering around the shoreline, we discover all sorts of interesting specimens- shells, crab legs and bodies, feathers, toi-toi, driftwood, rocks, seaweed and even some rubbish. We put any rubbish we find in a bag and talk about keeping our beach clean and tidy.

 

We talk about how the crab lost his leg/his nipper and about how sharp that looks. We stand on the big driftwood and practice our balancing. We check out the kaleidoscope of colours found inside the shells and put the ones we want to keep in a bucket or bag.
We test to see how deep we can in the water until the water reaches over the top of our gumboots and HOORAY!!!! Our feet are now wet. Hoorah!!  Not at all what mum planned but adds to the fun.

Then…check out the puddles on the rocks and away we go---jumping, splishing, sploshing, laughing, running and doing it again and again and again and again. Squeals of joy, excitement and sheer laughter abound- smiles and rapscallion glints in the eyes to see if Grandma lets us do it again…Yep… let’s do it again.

Treasure moments and memories with my grandies on windy, rainy, sunny and cloudy days. No time restraints and no holds-barred. Pure Fun……
Until we are wet through and tired and need to go home for a hot shower and something to eat….not so much fun.