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Beach Days
By Sarah Bridgeman
"If its warm enough tomorrow we'll go to the beach"
For once I'd willingly go to bed and pray that when morning came it would indeed be
warm enough. "Is it warm today Mum?", "Well look outside". I'd rush to the window
and be delighted by the sight of an open blue sky. The cavernous plastic freezer bag would be on the kitchen table and both Mum and Dad would be making the picnic lunch, having been up for hours already. The distinguished smell of freshly boiled egg, roast chicken and fresh white bread would permeate the air around the kitchen. Egg and salad cream sandwiches were my favourite, although they didn't taste right unless there was a sandy crunch to them. Only ever achieved on our magical outings to the beach.

Going to the beach in summertime Wales was always a last minute incredibly well planned expedition in our house. The equipment alone would have made the early explorers of the Congo jealous. Spade? check! Bucket? check! Gas stove? check! Gas stove? Yes, one year my Dad thought that it would be an excellent
idea to have a proper cooked Sunday dinner on the beach. With gravy.

On this particular warm looking sunny day, Dad decided we'd take one of his
famous short cuts. They could have been done by the trade description act due to the
lack of shortness in the cut. My two older sisters and I crammed into the old amber
Austin Allegro, our knees above our ears as the back seat was broken, hot plastic sucking at our legs. With every available nook and cranny in the boot of the car packed out like the Argos shop at Christmas, we were off. In his larger than life voice Dad said as the car drove down the steep hill in Tycoch from which we lived, "today girls, we're going through Crawley Woods". Wow, Crawley woods, I'd never heard of it before but it sounded both exciting and scary. An avid Enid Blyton fan I started to imagine all sorts of amazing creatures to be found in the woods. "when I was a lad" Dad continued" I went camping in Crawley woods for a week, with my best mate Tommy. Bills mum wouldn't let him go. We came back brown as berries. The lads down our street thought we'd been abroad." As the little car put putted its way through the narrow lanes of Gower towards the woods, and Dad regaled us with his childhood escapades, I sat quietly, imagining all sorts of excitement ahead. Maybe there'd be goblins waiting for us, or a witch. Maybe the witch would get my sisters

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