Waxham

Sunny Sunday brought dreams of frolicking on the beach in the sand with the kids. Fa-la-la we sang as we headed out.

Bess: 'To the beach papa....'

But on the other side of the dunes, the end of the world was in full swing with tempest winds, frothing sea, a large barnacled sea monster throwing oil rigs at the shore and sand that sucked your feet into its grainy depths. Needless to say the kids clung on for dear life.

Hauling ourselves, the junior appendages and the obligatory Ikea sacks of 'beach gear' back into a wind free dune we set about playing with very limited resources. Essentially some sand and many hundreds of its inhabitant ants. The cheese sandwich brought for lunch came out after about 8 minutes - an emergency diversion when the refusnik beach comber discovered all new levels of frustration when she couldn't make a sandcastle.

Old school: thermos with sandwich.

Wailing James, terrified by the blustering conditions, finds comfort in the bottle. Kahlua of course.

Bess finally gets her groove on in the dunes. This was taken after I found her face down and pointing downhill on one of the dune slopes. We laughed about it in the end. I then decided that it would be fun to slide down a dune in a more conventional fashion, only to end up with 4kilos of sand backed up in her shorts. Double whoops.

In all a trip that could have gone better.