Our holiday with cousin Gif

Cousin Gif with my Jack Russell on holiday

We've just been on holiday with cousin Gif, my sister and my nephew and had a wonderful week at Beesands in a cottage by the sea. A week of crabbing, fishing, skim boarding, walking the cliffs and inland hills in this most beautiful wild area. Fresh fish for dinner every night and falling asleep to the sound of waves lapping on the beach. We managed to exhaust the dogs and the kids had the kind of freedom they are not used to - exploring and mucking about on the beach from morning to night with new found friends.

We walked to the next village - Hallsands which in 1917 was destroyed by the sea - read about it here. Today you can see the ruins from a viewing platform which overhangs the sea precariously and some of the old cottages are still inhabited even though their doors are almost on the cliff edge.

Just before we went away we saw boys catching mackerel from the beach in Bognor and decided that we would have a go. (We do the gathering now we should try the hunting - or fishing!). We bought a rod that the boys could use too and Gray spent much of the week fishing. Despite the fact that everyone around him were catching loads of fish he didn't actually catch anything except a cold! There was even a woman fishing just to humour her husband who landed a monkfish from the beach. Gray was kind of worried about the actual task of killing the fish and the boys spent ages carving him a wooden cosh with their penknives. I did wonder if the worry of killing it actually stopped him from catching any but if we are going to eat meat or fish I think we need to be prepared to kill it too, although this may be easier said than done - we've yet to find out.