December on the allotment

Plot 8

Work on our allotments  slowed down considerably during December.  Our visits there were only to feed Ziggy the allotment cat, to pick produce and to cut greenery for my Christmas wreaths and flower arrangements.  December is such a busy month at home with all the preparations for Christmas that the allotment has to take a back seat. A few days before Christmas we went down to see what vegetables we could pick. The brussels sprouts haven't done very well and a lot of them have blown. I decided they weren't good enough for the Christmas day dinner table. Maybe another day. But I pulled beetroot, parsnips, leeks, swede and collected some onions from their storage racks in the shed.

plot 10b

We've had frosts this month which have finally finished off the flowers in the cut flower beds.  The autumn raspberries have gone over and are now ready for cutting back.  There are still beds which need to be cleared and topped with manure, the rhubarb and fruit bushes need manuring too.  There's plenty to do and I can't wait to start work again as soon as the weather is a bit milder.

Thank you for reading my blog. Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and lots of good gardening.

Winter colour and rustic decorations

 

Just before Christmas we visited RHS Harlow Carr.  I love the rustic decorations  in the gardens especially in the greenhouse and summer house.  They always give me ideas to use at home although some of them probably take a lot of preparation.

The table display in the summer house was quite simple but looked really good so I decided to decorate my porch in a similar way. I only managed to make one candle bowl as my porch table is much smaller than this.

Walking around the gardens we were quite taken with the winter colour from the dogwoods.

Seeing all this colour always makes me want to plant some dogwoods in my garden, but I wouldn't have enough space to get such a lovely effect.

Putting up the Christmas tree

 

The  second weekend in December we always start the process of putting up the Christmas tree. It always takes longer than intended that's why I say 'we start the process'. It can actually take several days. The tree was bought the weekend before and was left standing in a bucket of water outside until we were ready to bring it indoors.

Getting a 6ft Christmas tree into the house is not an easy job. We have the first job of moving the furniture to accommodate it. As we move the sofas around ( and they are heavy) the carpet gets a thorough vacuuming and we usually find numerous bits of Lego and small toys which the grandchildren have lost throughout the year. This time I all I found was a ball belonging to the cat and a dead spider. The cat views all this activity with wide eyed interest and as the tree is put into place she takes up residence under its lower branches. Perhaps she is remembering the fun she had last year. We are wondering if we will find her sitting on the top branch in the morning. No she will be banned from the room overnight!

When the tree is finally in place and decorated we rest our weary backs and agree it's the best tree ever (it always is). The cat meanwhile is plotting what mischief she can get up to under those branches.

Christmas shopping event

We've been really tired this week following last weekend down at our daughter's helping with her fund raising event. Packing up the car with all the stuff was quite a challenge especially as we were travelling a fair distance. Making sure nothing got squashed was important as well as finding room for everything in our little car. Our suitcase was somewhere underneath all the boxes as was the spare wheel. My husband was hoping we didn't get a puncture on the journey down!

But we had a great time and the whole event raised  a good amount for cubs funds. I enjoyed running my Christmas decorations stall and meeting so many people. It was good to chat to people even if they didn't want to buy.  We didn't sell up, I didn't expect to so we brought  some things back with us which we can either make use of ourselves or pass on to some local charity events and I managed to sell another fresh foliage door decoration once we got home. Now I need to find the time to make my own door wreaths.

Being so tired we haven't felt up to doing any allotment work, but as the work is slowing down now I'm not too worried. It's all about clearing and manuring beds at the moment and we can do that a bit at a time.

We've had frost this week so I'm glad that I remembered to close the lids on the cold frame where I have put some tender plants.

One of the wreaths I made

Glitter time

It's that time of year. The glitter is out and all over the place and it will probably be around for the next six months or so. On carpets, clothes, the cat, even the garden. For the last few weeks I have been making Christmas crafts for a fund raising event my daughter is organising--Christmas tree decorations, pomanders, rose hip hearts, pot pourri. It all involved plenty of glitter and smelly spices. The grandchildren complained about the smell but I like it.  This week I have been making fresh foliage arrangements--wreaths and table decorations.  I have raided the garden and the allotment for conifer, ivy, holly and anything else which looks good at this time of year and will keep for a few weeks.

It started off as just a small idea but grew as I got carried away with it all and did lots more than I intended.  I'm exhausted now, but it's all done and soon we will be attempting to pack all the stuff in the back of our little car and drive down to Bedfordshire. So if you are in the Stotfold area on Saturday 29th November, 12noon--4pm, call in at the Scout Hut on Baldock Road and enjoy a Christmas shopping day. You get a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine with your ticket. It should be a great day. If you see me say hello.

Tidying up

This time of year is quite an untidy time in the garden. Leaves are all over the place and as fast as you sweep them up there are more to take their place.  The borders are full of the the heads of dead flowers and wilting foliage. It can be really damp and murky too. Clearing the vegetable plots results in boots caked in mud.

Fortunately my obsessive tidiness in the house does not extend to the garden. Here I am happy to see summer flowers fighting for space, tumbling over paths and lawn edges. In the autumn the dead flowers take on another beauty with golden tints to their leaves and interesting shapes with their seed heads.

Untidiness in the garden is also good for the wildlife. Seed heads and hollow stems provide homes for insects which then provide food for the birds. Much as we love to compost our leaves we find it impossible to keep up with the constant sweeping . Around the garden most of the leaves are left, they tend to get blown under hedge bottoms and into corners where they become homes for more wildlife like hedgehogs, frogs and toads. I find that the leaves on the lawn blow away onto the borders. I clear them up gradually through the winter or early spring. But where the paths and drives are covered in leaves we sweep up as they can get slippy.

This week I have been sorting out the cold frame which gets full of all my plant cuttings.  I have a number of echiveria plants in pots around the garden. They grow well outside in the summer but need protection in winter.  I've tried different places to store them over winter like the front porch and the allotment growhouse.  Last year I put them in the cold frame under cover and they survived, so I decided to do that again this year. I have also put some pot geraniums in there to see if they survive. I bought an aeonium this year at a plant sale. This is too tall for the cold frame so I have wrapped it in sacking and bubble wrap and put it in a sheltered corner.

One area I do clean up in the autumn is the shed. As the lawn and hedges get their last cut the mower and hedge trimmer are packed into a corner of the shed. Shelves are sorted and tidied, the jumble of canes put into some sort of order, the plant pots are cleaned and packed into boxes under the bench. The floor and bench  are swept and given a quick mop with Jeyes Fluid. All is neat and tidy, but not for long, a gardener's work is never done!

Enjoying autumn

I often think that autumn can get a bit overlooked as a season.  By the end of September many shops now are  displaying Christmas goods and gradually the preparations for Christmas start to take over. But autumn beauty lasts well into November and Autumn can so easily get lost in the run up to Christmas.

A couple of weeks ago we visited RHS Harlow Carr. It was a birthday treat for me--a walk around the gardens and lunch in Betty's Tea Room. We often have the grandchildren with us when we visit Harlow Carr, but not this time, so instead of visiting the Tree House, the Log Maze and the Log Ness Monster we were able to go anywhere we wanted.

The arboretum was a good place to go since we wanted to take in the season's colours.  We wandered along the path going further than we had before on our visits. We hadn't realised the arboretum extended as far as it did. Back in the main part of the garden the main borders were still looking good even though the summer flowers were over with. There was plenty of colour and structure from the grasses and seed heads of the dead flowers. Around the main gardens there was some spectacular colour from specimen trees.

We paid the customary visit to the kitchen garden which was looking much like our allotment with some brassicas and salad still remaining and empty beds prepared for the winter. We noticed that the big pumpkin and squash beds were now empty. Where were the missing pumpkins and squash? We found them in the greenhouse looking very colourful.  Having visited Harlow Carr in December a few times I'm sure that they  will form part of the Christmas displays. We'll be back next month to check them out.

Tree cutting on the allotments

There was a lot of tree cutting work going on at the allotments last week, organised by the council. A row of 4 sycamore trees at the back of 4 plots including our plots 8 and 10b were cut back to provide more light to the vacant plot behind. Two of the trees were  cut down and the others had the canopy raised. We were pleased because although they don't cast much shade on our plots they were a nuisance because of the leaves and seed pods.

It has made quite a difference to plot 8 by opening up the top end and giving us more light. We are now able to see over the fence to the vacant plot which is quite big. The council hope to divide it up into 4 smaller plots so we might be having new neighbours soon. Unfortunately the grandchildrens secret woodland den is not secret anymore. If you click on the link you will see how it used to be.

Although the area has been opened up more it is still not possible to use the space for growing.  We can keep it as a wildlife area and having acquired several thick pieces of tree trunk I'm sure we can make something of this space. I think the grandchildren will be able to use their imagination to create another play area or little woodland garden. I feel a project coming on!

Clearing up the plots

As the days get shorter, we are now spending less time at the allotments. There are still plenty of jobs to be done though, but we tend to go down just for a couple of hours with a specific job to do without having our usual lunch or cups of tea.  Beds are gradually being cleared and then weeded and manured. It's a busy time trying to get them ready for winter.

The peas and courgettes have all been cleared and the climbing french beans will soon be finished with. The cabbage beds are quite full of produce still.  Kale, Brussels sprouts, sprouting broccoli, red cabbage and Calabrese will keep us going through the winter.

The summer cabbage and cauliflowers are now all done with and we have planted some garlic where they were in one of the beds on plot 8. In the roots beds there are still plenty of beetroot and some tiny celeriac. They will probably be left there for a while.

As they start to look messy, we pull up the flowers in the cut flower beds. From a distance they look good but close to we can see that most of them are not good enough to cut now. The dahlias however are still going strong and we are cutting as many as we can before the frosts finish them off and that may not be long off now.

At the weekend we cleared all the tomatoes out of the polytunnel. I was glad to get them out and the place cleaned up because I think there are mice in there. We have found holes in the soil and teeth marks in the tomatoes which had dropped off the plants onto the soil.  It looks very empty now and we are thinking about what we can grow over the winter.  At home I now have tomatoes all over the place, so I need to make something with them.

 

Autumn treasures

When our children were young I always used to take a polythene bag out with us when we went on walks.  This was to collect treasures.  You know the sort of thing, shells and pebbles if we were going to the beach, pine cones, leaves, conkers, etc on country walks. Our children have grown up now and probably outgrown that habit of collecting things. But I don't seem to have, because I still collect things when out walking.  On the other hand maybe it was me all the time who wanted to do the collecting.

I love everything about autumn, the colours, the falling leaves, the spider's webs in the hedges, shiny conkers, walking on crunchy beech nut shells, the seed heads of  summer flowers, berries in the hedgerows. And so I am often to be seen at this time of year, whether it is just strolling back from taking the grandchildren to school, on longer walks, or down at the allotment, clutching a handful of brightly coloured leaves, a bag of conkers, seed heads, rose hips, hawthorne berries.  In fact just about anything which catches my eye and looks interesting.

I press the leaves to preserve them, they can then be used for craft activities with the grandchildren. This year I have decided  to make some Christmas pot pourri so I will have plenty of natural ingredients to hand.  I might spray some of them gold.

They look good also left as they are and simply arranged in a bowl  next to a vase of berried branches for an autumn display. I have a table in the front porch where most of these 'treasures' are displayed. It's like a nature table and it changes with the seasons.

Autumn jobs on the allotment

As we move into Autumn, the work on the plot changes. No more is there a rush to get things in the ground, no more sowing, planting, staking and netting. Now we are harvesting our produce, clearing the ground, tidying up and manuring. Now is the time to start thinking about those jobs we didn't have time to do in the summer, like laying paths, cleaning out the shed, clearing that overgrown patch of ground.

The leaves are starting to fall from the big sycamore trees which overhang both our plots. Soon I will be gathering up the leaves. That's reminded me that I need to sort out the leaf bin. I recently found bindweed growing in it coming from the plant which is growing along the fence between ours and the plot next door. After I have cleared out all the bindweed roots, I will give the bin a turnover to see how well composted it is. I hope to be able to use the leaf mould to cover some of the beds over the winter. Then I will start to add this autumn's leaves to the bin. The compost bins need turning too and the manure bins will be topped up.

This week I have been pruning the gooseberries and blackcurrants. I managed not to get too many scratches from the gooseberries.  Before I tackled the pruning I first pulled up the nasturtiums which had been planted behind them to climb up the fence. They had given a lovely display through the summer but it was time for them to go and they were getting tangled up in the fruit bushes. They were easy to pull up but left a lot of seeds behind, I think we will be seeing them again next year! Having got rid of the nasturtiums and as many seeds as I could get hold of I could then see how well the climbers were doing which we had planted last year to try to cover the wire fence.  The honeysuckle, ivy and clematis are scrambling away along the fence,  the cotoneaster has berries on it which is providing both food for the birds and some welcome autumn colour. Once the fruit bushes had been pruned I weeded the fruit bed. It looks very tidy now.

There is plenty of autumn colour from the apple tree on plot 8. The tree has done really well this year after it's re staking and pruning last year. The cut flower beds are also providing colour to the plots, but they are coming to an end now. Soon we will be pulling them up.

I'm always sad to see summer come to an end, but once we are into autumn I love the colours and changes that the season brings. I love the clearing away of all the dead plants, preparing the beds for their winter sleep and having a good tidy up  It's still a busy time yet as the autumn clear up continues, but soon there will be time to slow down,  time to rest and reflect, time to think ahead and plan for next year.

Rose hips, sloes and a lovely walk

According to those who know these things, this year is a bumper year for foraging. Well there are certainly lots of blackberries about in the hedgerows. I always pick the blackberries from the lane down at the allotments. This year there have been lots and I also found some at the top of plot10b where we haven't cleared yet. I've made a mental note not to cut these down when we eventually start to clear this area.

My freezer is quite full of fruit now from the raspberries, rhubarb and gooseberries grown on the allotments this year, but I managed to find room for a few pounds of blackberries.

I mentioned before on my blog about how I like to make fruit gin and vodka with the blackberries, raspberries, and rhubarb from the plot.  The one thing I've also been wanting to make is sloe gin and as  I haven't found any sloes in the area around the allotments, we had to look elsewhere. So on a lovely sunny afternoon recently Richard and I set off walking in the direction of our local scout camp where I had been told there were plenty of sloes. It was lovely to get out walking on such a beautiful autumn day, it's quite a steep walk, but the views are fantastic. As we walked up the lane we noticed that the hedges had been cut, so if there had been any sloes here there weren't anymore. There were plenty of rose hips though, so I collected those I we walked. I like to dry these for Christmas decorations, so I gathered a bag full, leaving some on the bushes for the birds.

The path went through the scout camp and onto the fields, where we spotted what looked to be sloes in the hedge. We weren't disappointed, we picked nearly 2lbs of them. I was well equipped for foraging with plastic boxes and bags.  My rucksack was a bit heavier as we set off back over the fields.

The sloe gin is now prepared and will be ready for Christmas. I also made damson vodka using damsons from a friend's garden and gooseberry gin with allotment gooseberries, which at the moment looks a bit like frog spawn. I'm sure it will taste good.

Path work on the plots

Last week we were busy doing paths/storage /sitting areas on our two allotments. We were fortunate that some paths were already in place when we took both plots on and also there was a variety of stuff left by previous tenants, paving stones, bricks, rubble, wood, all useful materials. The paths which were already in place determined the layout of the plots. The other paths and seating areas have been roughly laid out by us but no  surface material in place. This meant that weeds were constantly appearing and the areas became muddy and slippy in wet weather.

We decided that now we have got the growing areas up and running we could spend some time sorting out these other areas. We ordered 5 tons of crushed stone from a local tippers. It cost £30 which we thought was very reasonable.  The areas we were planning to cover were the path up to the polytunnel and a seating area on plot 10b and a seating area on plot 8. (all hard working gardeners need somewhere to sit and rest with a brew!). We used some of the wood and bricks to define the edges of paths then covered the ground with membrane or old compost bags before putting the gravel on top

We were really pleased at how far 5 tons of stones went. After covering these areas, we still had loads of gravel left. Richard  came up with a plan to gravel the water butt area on plot8 as it gets very muddy and slippy in wet weather, so that got done too.

That was phase 1 of our  path making plans.  There is still more to be done, but both plots are looking better already.  As well as making the place look much tidier and easier to walk on, the gravel should help to suppress the weeds. I'm looking forward now to the next stage in the developments. In the meantime I'm enjoying taking well earned lunches and cups of tea on our gravelled sitting areas.

A summer of flowers

I've always liked to grow flowers in the garden which are good for cutting, but quite often don't have enough blooms to cut without spoiling the display. My garden also has a lot of shade so some flowers don't do well. So now we have the allotments I decided this year that I would try having a cut flower bed.

We decided to use  two beds, one on each plot which weren't going to be used for growing vegetables this year. I ordered seeds from Higgledy Garden, then I rummaged through my seed box and found a few packets of seeds which had been given free with gardening magazines. Also, tempted by the pictures on seed packets in the garden centre I bought more.

On Plot 8 the prepared bed is  triangular in shape and has a bit of shade from a big sycamore tree late in the day. Here I sowed calendula, ammi majus, escholzia, poppies, cornflower, lavatera and nigella. The bed on plot 10b  is in full sun. Here I grew, echium, larkspur, bupleurum and sweet peas. All of these were annuals and could be sown directly into the ground. I started off some half hardy annuals in the growhouse, some of these were a bit temperamental and had poor germination. I didn't have the time to give them any special attention, plants have to be tough to grow up here in the north. But the ones which did grow were zinnia, cosmos, aster, rudbekia and candytuft. Everything had to be easy to grow because I have two allotments of vegetables to look after too. I also bought some dahlia plants from a plant fair, no labels so I had no idea of colour, height, type. Surprise dahlias!

My enthusiasm for flowers took over and eventually we had more flowers to plant than we knew what to do with. So some got planted amongst the vegetables. The flowers grew and grew and the triangular bed became a tangle of colour. I forgot to support the flowers early on so I stuck in some twiggy sticks which helped a bit. We hadn't expected the sweet peas to do well as they looked a bit weak and weary when we first planted them, but they really took off in the sunny bed. We had put in a cane and netting support for them but they outgrew that and toppled over.  We rescued them by shoving in more canes and hoisting them up. Some of  the flowers planted amongst the vegetables took over a bit causing some shade. The dahlias were amazing, they were planted in a separate bed and I remembered to stake them! The zinnias were stars, standing upright, needing no support and such variety of colour. 

 I made some mistakes--getting carried away and sowing too much, not staking, but generally I was pleased with the results.  Next year though, I will probably not grow as many, I spent a lot of time on the flower growing when I needed to have been doing other things on the allotments.


So here we are in September, the flowers are still in bloom and  I have had a constant supply of cut flowers for the house all through the summer.

Back from the holidays

Whenever I return from holiday, although I always look forward to getting back to the garden and allotment, I'm usually a bit worried as to what sort of state they are going to be in. We've recently returned from two weeks away and I was quite pleased that everything looked quite good on our return. 

Before we went away I had a good weed and cut back in the garden and all that hard work seems to have paid off.  I was expecting to see plants flopping all over the place and lots of dead heading needing to be done.  Instead everything was looking quite perky, some of the plants I had cut back had bounced back to produce more flowers and the borders were full of late summer colour from the rudbekias, heleniums, sedums and phlox.

Down at the allotments the vegetables were growing well. The tomatoes are now ripening daily, the courgettes are growing faster than we can pick them and the french beans are growing fast too.  There are cabbages, cauliflowers, swede, kale, leeks and raspberries all ready for picking. And lots of flowers too.  Everything seems to be ready all at once.

The sweet peas which we had not expected to do well have been flowering for weeks now and had grown so big that they had toppled over.  We hoisted them up,  fixed some more canes in place and tied them all up with thick string. I'm hoping they will sort themselves out, at the moment they look a bit trussed up, but they are still producing flowers so it seems a shame to pull them up yet.

The rest of the allotment just needed a good weed and we started with plot 10b doing all the raised beds and the paths during the week. This weekend Helen and I started weeding plot 8.  We didn't finish but it's all looking much better.

August crops

The heavy rain over the last couple of weeks was very welcome after such a long dry spell.  The allotment is looking good, very green and full of produce.  After the hard work of making sure we got  seeds and plants in the ground at the right time, it's great to be now picking produce every time we visit the plots. In fact this has become a job in itself which we have to allow time for. Weeding is another big job, if we hoe round the beds every time we go it helps to keep them under control. A couple of weeks without weeding allows them to take over again.

Last week we pulled the onions and they are now drying out in the sheds on both plots. we noticed that the onions grown in the raised beds on plot 10b were much bigger than those grown on plot8. This is probably because there is some shade on plot 8 whereas the onion bed on plot 10b was in almost full sun.

We have been picking peas and broad beans for a few weeks now and there are still more to come.  The dwarf and climbing french beans are flowering, but no beans yet.  The salad bowl lettuce finally went to seed and grew to an enormous height, so that has gone on the compost heap. That's what comes of planting too many.  There is still some freckles lettuce and red salad bowl, and plenty of spring onions both red and white.

The cabbage frames which Richard built seemed to have defeated the cabbage white butterflies, but some of the cabbages have been attacked by slugs. They are still edible, just need a good wash first. There's nothing worse than slicing through a slug. Oh, well perhaps eating one would be worse--ugh!

I'm quite pleased with the celeriac, which has started to swell.  The swedes are also swelling and we will soon be able to pick the first ones. Carrots have been a bit of a failure, but then they always are for us. We've sown them in deep tubs this year to try and deter the root fly, but there is only one tub which looks anything like having carrots growing in it.

It's good to see that we will have a continuous supply of veg coming through now which will keep us going into the winter. Once the peas and beans come to an end, we will still have brassicas, leeks, swede, celeriac, beetroot and  fennel.

Along the canal at Skipton

Last weekend our daughter and family who live in Bedfordshire came to visit for a few days. They were looking forward to some good family days out. It was unfortunate that the weather decided to change just at that point from warm sunny days to cooler, cloudy conditions, so as we thought about where we would like to go we had to think about somewhere to go if it rained. After much discussion and changes of destination, we finally decided on Skipton. There's something for everyone in Skipton--shops, market, castle, walks and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.  We decided to have a canal boat ride in the morning whilst the weather was fine and then if it rained later we could visit the castle or look at the shops.

As we queued up for the 30 minute canal boat trip, our son-in-law had a better idea and disappeared for a while returning with a booking for a 2hour boat hire. Both he and my daughter have driven a canal boat before so we hoped they knew what to do, although he did get some instructions from the boat hire man.

We just had enough time to whizz round the shops to buy food and drink for a picnic to take on board with us.  We had a lovely 2 hours sailing slowly along this lovely, picturesque canal, relaxing, eating, watching the other boats, looking out for wildlife.

Later back on dry land we walked along the canal towpath towards the castle. The path then took us along the bank of the river and through Skipton Castle woods. We've been to Skipton many times but never done this walk before. It's an easy walk and very scenic. We didn't complete the walk as we had to get back home, but it was very enjoyable and a place we will return to soon, I'm sure.

Heysham Head

We've been looking after the grandchildren this week, the first week of the school holidays.  It's probably the best week to have to look after them, before they get really bored and argumentative and you're wishing they were back at school. We've had a few outings and activities planned, both indoor and outdoor and none of these have involved any great expense.

We decided to make the most of the warm weather on Monday as the forecast for the rest of the week was not looking as good. We headed off to the coast to Heysham Head, which is just south of Morecambe.  Richard and I like to visit here from time to time and thought the children would enjoy it too.

The quiet little street of Heysham village is lined with old stone cottages and pots of bright, colourful flowers. There are one or two cafes and a pub, but that is all. The street leads down to the beach, but the tide was in when we arrived, so we walked up towards the headland and the church of St. Peter. This beautiful old church is set in a stunning location overlooking Morecambe Bay.

The oldest parts of the church date from the 8th century and there are some very interesting features.The church was really quiet, but I found a man eating his lunch in the choir stalls. I think he was as surprised as I was. He was apparently 'on duty' so he proceeded to tell us about the church. He pointed out a Viking gravestone and the children sat on the floor whilst he explained the story behind the symbols. I was worried they might be bored but they were quite entranced by his story telling.

Back outside we walked up to the top of  the headland to the ruined St. Patrick's Chapel. Here the views across Morecambe Bay are wonderful. The area around here was once a burial site. An interesting feature  is the eight stone coffins. This area was excavated during the 1970s and skeletons were found. The skeletons were dated around the 10th century and the bones have now been buried in the churchyard.

I have heard this place described by one of our diocesan bishops as a 'thin place'. This means there is not much to separate the heavenly from the earthly. It's an expression used to describe 'spiritual' places. Richard and I have always felt there was something  about this place which was very special. It's a place where you feel very peaceful, very close to God.

We found a place to have our picnic, then we followed a path which led down to a little sandy beach.  We had to do a bit of scrambling over rocks to get down there but it was worth it.  The children loved playing on the beach and paddling in the sea. Beautiful as it is, Morecambe Bay is a dangerous place with strong tides and quicksands so we didn't allow them to go far.

We made sand castles as always and of course had an ice cream before we went back home. The general opinion from the grandchildren was that they had really enjoyed the whole day, but the best thing was the beach.