We chose Tenby as a holiday destination as we were keen for the children to experience a truly British seaside holiday!  Considering how much I love the coast, they’ve spent very little time playing around on a beach (although they are regulars in our local sandpits!).  With the weather forecast dire, I was nervous our trip to Wales was going to be a complete washout, and we were going to have to forgo the beach for the local softplays.

Our first two attempts at beachtime were somewhat disastrous – with Sophie immediately falling in a freezing cold rockpool within minutes of arriving on the first trip, and Alex walking too far into the incoming tide and being soaked to the waist on our second trip.

Buy things improved substantially after that, and we enjoyed hours of coastal fun over our week in Tenby!  It’s a stunning spot on a beautiful coastline – we loved the beautifully painted buildings around the harbour (and took a ridiculous number of photos of them!)

I’m so glad we visited off season – we had the beaches almost to ourselves and the peace and quiet was such a treat after the bustle of London.  I’d love to have a holiday home here – like the lucky people who purchased and developed the old lifeboat station shown below and featured on one of my favourite Channel4 “Grand Designs”!

Nothing clears your head better than some fresh air and the sound of the sea

The children weren’t quite so interested in peace and quiet – finding the beach one enormous playground!  Of course, Alex made a beeline for any stone he could lay his hands on, throwing as many as possible into the waves.

And we all enjoyed some clambering and climbing on the rocks and in the caves.

Sophie had a permanent grin on her face on the beach – just love these pictures of her looking so full of joy and life

She followed Alex everywhere, copying everything he did.  Here are my gorgeous siblings closely inspecting little rock pools together.

Alex helped Sophie climb into a little cave where they posed for a cheesy sibling photo – I love how he’s looking at his little sister here.

When you’re 2 and 4, the best thing about the beach are the waves – we spent ages splashing in our wellies and running away from the tide – they literally screamed with laughter.

Here’s Sophie following Alex again!

We, of course, spend many hours digging and building sandcastles – it was fun watching Alex directing Sophie in their construction project, which seemed to involve digging a river, lake and dam.

They worked so hard – and roped in Daddy as a helper when it got too tiring!

We were lucky enough to bump into a photographer who kindly took a few family portraits of us – they make me giggle everytime I see them.

And unusually I handed over the camera and Matt snapped some pics of me with the children

We loved the beach views from Tenby’s Castle Hill, where there were canons to climb on and massive hills to roll down!

We were keen to get out on the water, and were thrilled to find that the first boat trip of the 2015 season took place during our stay.  So we headed out on a Seal Safari to explore the shoreline of nearby Caldey Island, home to lots of seabirds and seals.  Sophie loved it, not minding the sea swell and the freezing cold wind!

We were lucky enough to see a fair number of seals who were fairly inquisitive, having not seen a boatload of tourists for months!

What a week!  I’m still finding sand in random places, and the car smells somewhat fishy after all the shells the children collected, but we had such an amazing time, I don’t mind.  Can’t wait to get to Cornwall in May for more seaside fun.

We’ve had such an adventure this Easter, it’s going to take me a few blog posts to get through the hundreds of photographs we’ve taken and memories we’ve made.

Perhaps unwisely, given the usual wet weather in March/April in Wales, we opted to spend a week off at Easter renting a cottage in Tenby, Pembrokeshire.  The forecast when we arrived made us think we’d made a terrible mistake, but thankfully, most of the wet and windy weather came at night and we had enough clear weather to enjoy some amazing experiences out in the fresh air.

We had quite a farm themed series of days during our trip – taking advantage of the close proximity to the brilliant Folly Farm.  It was the perfect location for a couple of visits – with a vast outdoor park featuring everything from lions to giraffes to penguins.  Sophie loved meeting the monkeys – and they seemed to like her panda, Buddy:

We met a giant tortoise and a giraffe that was even taller than daddy:

And the “Pride of Pembrokeshire” – a family of lions who didn’t look too bothered by the cool temperatures of Wales!

As well as the animals, there were loads of really toddler friendly ride ons and games.  Alex and Matt thoroughly enjoyed driving mini diggers (I think Matt may have enjoyed it even more than Alex!)

And they both loved racing around a track together.  Sophie was less than impressed to watch her beloved “Buddy” speeding around in the race car:

Sophie was more enthused by the Big Wheel – and we took the opportunity to get a cheesy selfie!

When the rain set in during the afternoon, we headed indoors to the vast barns which were filled with farm animals and more rides.  Sophie loved meeting more chickens and Alex got to milk a goat!

Sophie even milked a pretend cow

It’s a great spot – I feared it would be super busy and really tacky – but it was really well thought out and so large, it never felt busy.  I suspect it might be a different story in the middle of August!  The children loved the farm so much that we made the most of the special offer to get half price tickets if you visit twice in a week!

We had another animal themed day while visiting our friends on The Gower – Luke and Laura, and their lovely children Isla and Taliesin.  We enjoyed a good catch up, delicious lunch and windy trip to the local playground – but for Alex and Sophie, the absolute highlight was meeting the resident chickens!  We were very impressed with the hen house Luke had constructed for them and it was great to see them roaming around the garden exploring.

I’ll be surprised if the chickens lay for a few days until they recover from being chased, stroked and overfed by our pair!

Our final farm adventure of our Pembrokeshire week was a visit to Matt’s family in Nantgaredig in the hills of Carmarthenshire.  His cousins both farm – and we visited Godor Farm, where his cousin Ian and his family now have sheep and cows.  Matt spent most of his childhood Christmas holidays on the Farm where his mother grew up, and after not visiting for nearly three years, jt was a real pleasure to come back and introduce Sophie to the Howell family.

It is such a beautiful spot and we made the most of the dry weather to explore as much of the farm as possible:

It’s right in the middle of the lambing season and we were lucky enough to meet (and cuddle) lots of the tiny newborn lambs!

The children got stuck in, going into the orphan lamb ben and stroking as many as they could reach.

We were unbelievably lucky and got to witness a lamb bring born from this first time mum!  The children were not at all phased by the blood (although Alex did comment that it looked a bit sore for the mummy sheep!).  We were super impressed by Muriel – who spotted the ewe in labour, stripped off her coat, calmly delivered the lamb, administered worming medication, washed her arms and then continued our farm tour!  We’re a little bit in awe!

After the lambing sheds, we visited the herds of cattle – and got to meet two beautiful calves who were less than 24 hours old.  We didn’t get very close to them as their mums were very protective!

After a quick stop off visiting the chickens (and collecting eggs which we enjoyed for our breakfast today!), we were introduced to the farm machinery.  After the mini diggers at Folly Farm, Alex couldn’t believe his luck when he got to drive a real one with Ian!  They attempted, thankfully unsuccessfully, to scoop up a chicken and hammered some rocks into the mud.

Matt and Sophie kept their distance!

We thought Ian and Muriel were joking when they suggested we got into a trailer behind their quad bike – but they were completely serious, wanting to show us the fields where the older lambs were.  So off we went, bumping around the estate and getting seriously muddy!

Alex and Sophie even got turns on the quad bike driving with Ian, who enjoyed pretending we’d broken down while crossing the river, encouraging Alex to get out and push!

When we stopped to meet Sid and Martha, the resident donkeys, and the children had a good clamber on the quad – I think they’ll be wanting to spend their school holidays at Godor as well!

After all the excitement outside, and a delicious salmon lunch cooked by superwoman Muriel, we snuggled up by the fire and she and her youngest son – William – introduced Alex to jenga!  We caught up with Matt’s Auntie Margaret (one of my top blog visitors!) and other cousin, Sue, who’d popped in to say hello and deliver Easter eggs to the children.

It was a truly wonderful day.  We don’t get to Nantgaredig often enough – but when we make it, we never fail to enjoy every minute with this incredibly warm and welcoming family. We won’t wait another three years to return.

Here’s a very happy family Agar!