Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.

I love the seaside. I miss it, and especially as it's (supposed to be) getting in to summer, I really really miss the sea. Not that I ever really properly lived by the sea. I lived in Portsmouth for 3 years whilst at uni, and managed to go to the beach almost every day, even though it wasn't a proper beach, or amazingly nice, I just love the sea air, and the feel of sand or pebbles beneath my feet.

So as soon as my niece was old enough to stand and walk, I took her to the local parks to play in the sand, as I feel it is very important. I spent most of my childhood holidays outside or on the beach somewhere licking pebbles and eating sand, which is why I believe that I'm so healthy as an adult, I got all the germs in there when I was younger so my body got on and dealt with them, and now I'm thankfully very lucky to have a good strong immune system.

I love my niece, and I know she's only little, but she can be a little bit prissy about things and doesn't like getting her hands dirty (one of her favourite games used to be 'wash hands' - weird child). So i feel it is my duty to teach her to do more outdoory things instead of her more favourite watching tv. Luckily, there's always a Nana (or 2 in this picture) around when I'm home to come and entertain the little one with me, and so when I was home for Easter, we took her to the park to teach her how to make sandcastles.  

Although Nana is possibly getting a little more into it than my niece is, she did love it. So we taught her the important art of building sand castles, and then I taught her the even more important art of jumping on them!! I've heard so many stories of mums nowadays not encouraging their kids to share with others that I feel this was important lesson to learn - have fun with it while it's there, but then there will be plenty more things to play with after, so there's no need to get attached to just one thing. 

On saying this though, I did have to keep swapping spades with the little one when making the sand castles, as she kept insisting that mine was the better spade and she wanted it....I will learn one day!!