Ben was first up today, waking us up around 7.15am.
Not long later, the kiddies were marching around the kitchen like starved farm animals until breakfast was served.
It was nothing grand. We’d brought one of those Kelloggs variety packs that normally lasts an average bloke a day but is perfect for the kids, and Ben chose the most chocolaty one he could find. In fact, the boxes disappeared over the course of the week in descending order of chocolatiness.
We were expecting visitors today and early – around 9am – in the shape of Ellen’s sister Sally.
Sally lives in nearby York and we all headed into Scarborough for a bit of sightseeing, but more importantly, to buy a pushchair for Ciaran as we’d left our pushchair in the boot of Ellen’s car 200 miles away.
We picked one up in the Brunswick shopping centre and decided to walk down the beach, no mean feat as Scarborough is 230 feet above sea level. We wandered down a meandering cliff pathway onto an esplanade and along the seafront.
The place looked impeccable. Victorian buildings everywhere, colourful flower gardens, rockeries, and very clean. I’d read that Scarborough was one of Yorkshire’s ‘Renaissance Towns’ and had received a lump sum of Government regeneration funding. It had certainly been put to good use.
Scarborough harbour stretches round in a giant horseshoe shape from the old Town Hall to Scarborough Castle and it wasn’t long before we gave in, totally unplanned, to the delights of the beach.
Ben was stripped of shoes and socks in no time, positively kicking off each sock, and sprinted down to the sea with Mummy barely keeping up. I stayed on the beach with Sally and Ciaran. If I’d brought my trunks, I’d be in the sea too.
And not to disappoint, Ben soon tore of his shirt - his last item of clothing - and was swimming naked, before returning to the beach to make weird shapes in the sand in what can only be described as odd ‘snow-angel’ motions. This was quickly followed by naked snake movements. He was covered in sand.
Ciaran kept munching on sand and insisted on running over to the donkeys. There was definitely an attraction building there.
We stayed on the beach until about 1.30pm before heading off to get some lunch.
We chose the Lifeboat Café, next to the beach, as it looked like a fish and chips hotspot. The food didn’t disappoint and we left well-fed and walked right round the harbour to the foothills of Scarborough Castle before deciding Ciaran was freezing and needed to go back.
Ben had also developed a major tantrum at this stage - the first of many on the holiday.
He's at that stage where if he sees something, he has to have it. There's no areas of mutual understanding, no questions asked or middle ground. It's like negotiating with a terrorist.
This time, we'd passed (another) ice-cream parlour and he'd already lost about five previous battles on the way here, passing numerous amusement rides, arcades, a kiddies fun-land centre and, yep, more ice cream parlours. We had to get him one, and we did. A 99 cone with flake.
His face was soon plastered in ice-cream but at least there was a smile there...I think...behind all the ice cream it was hard to tell.
We all caught the bus back and then the tram back up the 230ft cliff to Scarborough town centre, before returning to the car for the 7-mile trip back to Filey.
Sally sagely observed on the journey home that there was an indecently high proportion of bald men (not balding, bald) in Scarborough and in ‘The North’ generally. She speculated that this was most likely due genetic deficiencies oop Nooorth and before we knew it, we were back in the caravan site.
Dinner was had in the caravan site restaurant. Decent prices, great choice, ok food –what food I could get my hands on that is – I offered Ben a bite of my burger and the little beggar nicked my breast of southern fried chicken.
Kids were in bed relatively late again, and we all had a few beers and a thorough chat before turning in for the night.
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