Wednesday 11 August 2010

A wet day in Elie

So what "away days" did I have with the boys? Sharon was away down to Bracknell on the Wednesday so I undertook the laborious task of packing enough clothes, food and toys for a day at the beach. Unfortunately, as we headed round the bypass towards the Forth Road Bridge, the sunshine of Edinburgh was snuffed out by dark rain clouds invading Fife from the west. By the time we got to Elie, the showers were heavy and frequent. We went up to visit the Fishers, whose holiday home was the meeting point for many of the boys' Pentland peers: Patersons, Valentines, Fletchers, MacLeods and Barrs. We went round to the beach despite the dampness where the children had a great time digging and flirting with the water. Angus was Sharon's worst nightmare, sitting in the sand which was drying, encrusted, on his legs and putting sand-covered balls and toys in his mouth. Lovely.

A return of the rain forced us back indoors for the picnic lunch, although that required a major changing of clothes, a feat repeated when everyone decided to go back to the beach afterwards. Sean and Finn seemed unperturbed about putting their soggy, sand-laden clothes back on but Rowan had lost his love of the beach some time before and was quite vocally opposed to staying a moment longer, a fact he repeated ad nauseum as I walked with him and Angus, sleepnig in his buggy, along to the Ship Inn. Elie is a lovely little coastal town with an excellent beach and there was plenty of watersports going on for Rowan and I to observe from the sea wall. We could see the rain coming in too and hurried back along as Sean and Finn, who had been in the sea along with the indefatigable Ross, were fast approaching cold and miserable status. They pretty much had to be hosed down outside the holiday house, to get them in a fit state to sit in the car.

The boys enjoyed seeing their school chums, but the time taken to get everything ready, get there and back and then clean everything up probably exceeded the time spent in Elie. It was a shame the weather didn't play its part.

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