UK sand and sun - a weekend in Camber Sands

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside! Especially when the seaside is 7 miles of golden sand, who'd have thought that existed just two hours from London?

Well it does, and it's called Camber Sands. But as gorgeous as that sounds, we rather quickly realised that sand and an uber-curious-everything-in-the-mouth-nearly-crawling-six-month-old don't really mix that well. They mix - in a sort of sand everywhere, in the mouth, in the eyes, in the nappy - kind of way, but not well in terms of cleaning it all up when the six month old is so wriggly you'd think he permanently has ants in his pants.

But back to the break away: we recently spent four nights at Camber Sands, an easy drive from London and just five minutes from the beautiful old town of Rye. With the aforementioned six month old in tow, we didn't do much, but we did all relax and sleep amazingly being away from the everyday. One morning we just plopped mini-Yazz between us in our super king sized bed and all snoozed off for an extra hour. Must have been that sea air!

As well as a couple of wanders along the beach and an aborted attempt at fish and chips on the beach in the wind with the wriggler, we explored Rye by wandering its steep cobbled streets complete with timber houses from the 16th century and the look-out at Ypres tower over the marsh land. The best find was Knoops chocolate shop which does hands down the most incredible, chocolatey milkshakes and hot chocolate we've ever had. And we've tried more than our fair share of those over the years. They make it with loads of huge chocolate chunks, and you choose what chocolate you want - like an 80% from Uganda, or a 30% milk, and then choose other bits to add, like chilli or peppermint. 

One rainy day we drove to New Romney where mini-Yazz discovered his squealling singing voice for the first time over lunch at the lovely Aboyne House restaurant. Top timing. It's still a weird sight for us having him sit at the table with us and gobble down morsels from our plates (the one - ONE - trait he seems to have from his mum is a love for burgers. Seriously this kid is 99% a mini-Dean). We followed up with a quick walk at the Romney Marsh wildlife centre which was smaller than expected but a pleasant stroll with some history thrown in.

Learnings from this trip:

• babies and sand. Stupid idea.
• our Ford Focus is at the very limits of space when travelling with a wee one.
• we need a super King bed.