Our visit towards the end of August was very different from previous ones as for a major part of the time we rented the next door cottage, which we share a drive with, for our daughter and her family. With two grandchildren aged 4 and 2, life was very different to our usual relaxing time walking, visiting friends etc although we did find some time for this at the start and end of our trip.
Living with 2 small children, albeit in the cottage next door, meant early starts with visitors around 7 o'clock each day and then it was non-stop until bedtime. Having the village playground nearby was great and we were able to amuse the children for many a half-hour when they were getting bored. It is a fantastic asset and one bigger towns and villages would be proud of.
Most days the children wanted a visit to the beach and luckily the weather was fine for this. We had to forsake our usual favourite spots such as Greencliff and settled on Sandymere where there is good parking and other facilities close to the beach. We were also able to take 2 dogs to the dog-friendly part of the sands. As we rarely bathe we were surprised at how far we had to walk to reach the sea at low tide, usually whilst chasing an excited four year-old.
We had a day off when the family went to The Big Sheep and used the opportunity to go for a coastal walk and then to visit friends in Abbotsham.
Sunday lunchtime at The Bell could have been a disaster with 2 young children but we were happily settled in the upper room and the other diners left soon after we arrived! We all enjoyed an excellent sunday lunch including the two vegetarians amongst us. It was so good that the children wanted to visit again so we went for lunch on the day they were leaving and they then slept for the majority of the journey to the North East.
We had a further 3 days in the village after the family left and took part in some of our more usual activities including a lovely walk at Skern and afternoon tea with friends.
We were also delighted one evening to find that we had a hedgehog visitor on our driveway, the first we had seen in the village although we knew that they were around.
Our journey back to Knutsford started out well and we made good progress until we passed Stafford on the M6. Despite following the SatNav we ended up in a very slow queue of traffic for 3 hours. We were able to chat with the lorry drivers we were alongside about our predicament, and many had much further to travel than we did. Sadly there had been a fatal motorcycle accident and once we had passed through the traffic moved freely. We did however need to make an urgent stop at services not far from home to let the dog out and give ourselves a break after five hours in the car!
