You know when it’s sunny in the UK and everyone excitedly rushes outside to hang out their washing, while wearing a pair of shorts and flip-flops? Sometimes motherhood is like that for me. It’s those flashes of delight, moments of sunshine, in between overcast weather or stormy skies. I live for those flashes of delight.
This last weekend was one big old flash of delight. Actually, it was more of a hazy permanent glow. But I know, looking back, it will be one of those sparks I’ll remember when the girls are grown and I’m collecting happy memories of their days as little people.
The sun shone in Devon from Saturday through to Monday, with blue skies and balmy temperatures. I’ve said before that when the weather’s like this it feels like we’re on holiday and I have to pinch myself that this is where we actually live now. Sunshine makes everything better.
The NLM’s parents came down to visit (although their 8 hour journey in hellish bank holiday traffic probably wasn’t so much fun) and we made a special effort to do fun things. Because of the distance, we don’t get to see them a huge amount, but when we do we always make the most of it.
Saturday was a potter around a local art gallery and high street, with a barbecue thrown in for good measure. While Sunday saw us head to Dartmouth, where we got the ferry across the estuary to Kingswear before hopping on a steam train along the coast and back again. A meal out at the village pub later that evening, and then breakfast out the following day and it felt like all our Instagram-ready family snaps had come at once.
We spent most of yesterday on the beach which is definitely both my girls’ happy place. Baby Girl pottered about paddling and building sand mounds (!) while Frog practised her swimming with me in the sea. As I sat on the beach with the sun on my bare legs and my kids happily playing around me (until the toddler poured a bucket of ice cold water on her sister’s head, obviously) I had one of those intense feelings of contentment. They don’t happen all too often in the busy rush of daily life, when we have to get somewhere on time or I’m attempting to juggle emails with an errant toddler runs amok throughout the house.
But when those flashes of delight do happen, they make the waiting worth it.
Tell me, how was your weekend?
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