School's out

The summer holidays start here tomorrow.
For us that means less family time, lots of early mornings for Richard, and lots of moaning from Tess that "it's not fair that were not going to France!" (Other people are going to France)

It's our 19th summer of having the shop and we always have mixed feelings about it. But the bottom line is we need people to come to Croyde and for Richard to be busy at the shop in order to pay the mortgage so that we can continue living in such a beautiful place.
That's just how it is.

I don't even want to go to France. Tess just wants to be like other kids her own age. If they were going to Swindon she'd want to go too.
People get fixed in a "this is how you must behave as a family" routine in society and even if it's not fun we carry on doing it.

Well...
This is how we behave as a family and it's a bit different but it's actually quite good really.

When Tess is older she'll see that.

We had an hour or so on the beach this evening. It was almost uncomfortably hot - even at 6pm.
We've just spent the rest of the evening outside and only came in when the toads started crawling across the dewy lawn.
I know Richard feels a bit sad about having to dedicate the next 6 weeks to the shop rather than his family - as time has gone on I think it's got harder, but he is a very dedicated father and husband and knows what's really important, and we all understand (or try to understand in Tess's case!)