It is my day off today, and as the weather has been so hot and sunny, we decided last night that we would go to the seaside today. Miss Hap has broken up for the school holidays and Mr Grump has this week off. As my world revolves around food I decided that we would take a picnic, and I even made my picnic pie to munch on. After all lazing on the beach with the odd bit of swimming thrown in is hungry work!

This morning we all got up and ready quite early. The weather forecast promised to be good so we set off to the seaside! The sun was shining and in just over 20 mins, we had arrived to the beach we used to go to a lot when we were kids. We pulled into the car park but it was shut! It seemed there was one a little further down the road instead.

We parked up after spending some considerable time on the phone trying to pay for the parking (stupidly we didn’t have the right change). We got that sorted and then decided to go on to the sands. We left our towels and picnic in the boot whilst we checked out whether the tide was in or not.

One we got it we noticed it was decidedly chilly, and a few ominous grey clouds had appeared. Luckily we had bought jumpers etc, and on a positive note had the beach to ourselves.

I even went in for a little paddle (it was bloody FREEZING)!

Unfortunately though, the little huts where you could buy hot drinks, ice creams and even beach goods were all closed so we moved down the coast a little to Dymchurch where Mr Grump and I warmed up with a latte and Miss Hap a hot chocolate!

At least we got a hot drink there (oh and had another car parking phone call)!

It was nice to see the English, Scottish and Welsh flags flying over the small amusement park (which was closed when we for there)! Even the poor donkeys had nothing to do.

It felt as if we were in the Twilight Zone or something; after all, it is the middle of July which is supposed to be summer, and hardly anything was open!

Oh, we ate the picnic in the car!