When warm sunny days seems so far away it seems a good idea to share our summer fun at the seaside to hopefully bring a smile to your face and lift your spirits for a moment.
We spent just a few weekends after Lockdown 1 at West Runton at the caravan settling into our weekend retreat catching up with old friends and kindling new friendships, before the whole of August at the seaside. What a treat that was and keen to keep repeating, so hoping Lockdown 2 allows another August to indulge ourselves in 2021.
Dylan had not been at school for the whole of Lockdown 1 so by the time August came he was really missing his school mates, even recognizing himself how 'down' he was feeling stating he hadn't had any proper interaction with another child for 6months. A long time for a young fella, his constant being Jerry, which brings positives and negatives (tongue in cheek!). So we invited his mate Henry to join us for a few days, really good company together.
Enjoying the sea and beach was our focus, got Dylan (and Henry when with us) into Glide Surf School at Cromer. Dylan really improved over the month having a number of lessons and surf school for the week. An enjoyable experience to watch too with a coffee and cake (for Jerry of course!) particularly as Dylan's confidence grew and he just kept getting up and going back out on his board to have another go.
Looking for fossils has turned into a 'must' activity on West Runton beach for us now, no longer can we go for a good striding walk as always looking at our feet for what fossil we might find. In the video below Dylan is holding a Great Elk or Deer antler found in the Red Crag, a geographical formation up to 2.5million years old. So the antler found was older than the West Runton Mammoth and enjoyed by those who know what they are talking about in the fossil world. We regularly find belemnites (marine animal tail) but at the moment my hope is to find a good quality econode (sea urchin). Jerry has started an old past time of polishing stones and semi precious crystals. As a family we are enjoying painting stones we find at the beach and then decorate around our caravan, which we aim to be off set with the polished stones.
We did some walking, enjoyed all the local eateries for mainly breakfast or lunch and some take away options too. Think we visited them all in West Runton from: Dormy, Corner House, Pepper Pot, Rocky Bottoms, The Links, to Wills Plaice in East Runton and The Feathers in Holt following a steam train ride to return again.
Along with the steam train ride on the Poppy Line from Sheringham to Holt. We visited the Shire Horse Sanctuary in West Runton, lots of animals basking in the sun and shade with some local historical vehicles and equipment, photos and articles. Another time we stretched ourselves to Muckleburgh Military Collection: thrilling for a boy very interested in modern historical warfare, seeing so much artillery in the same place blew his mind! Then we booked ourselves into the Broads Museum at Stalham, with a ride on the steam boat on the Broads, interesting perspective of the Broads, saw a Coypu now extinct even stuffed quite alarming.
In essence a beautiful time; catching up with old friends (Libby & Maz) making many new friends and a few visitors through the month some staying and some just for the day whist the weather was good. The weather turned stormy for some of the time too which meant in doors playing and the purchase of a heating rail system to cope with wet clothes/towels.
Perfect times!
This video is a good representation of our August holiday, hope you enjoy :)
