Thursday afternoons by the sea

 Thursday afternoon are our time off together as a family, and we seem to be ending up at Hayling Island more and more often. Not that I'm complaining mind you, there is something really enjoyable in walking along the seashore for a little bit hunting for treasures. One day I will find dubloons or Nazi gold I swear!

  Today while beach combing we found lots of pretty rocks and seashells, seaweed, cuttlefish, a few pieces of crab shell and a broken necklace. We left everything but the necklace almost where we found it. I wish I could say that it was a diamond or opal necklace but alas it is a simple leather thong with a few glass beads on it, I didn't want to leave it there because it might have hurt some poor local wildlife and also because it was my first find in ages and I just know I can think of something crafty to do with it soon.

 After our walk we enjoyed some of the local arcade games. As usual we let ourselves have a pound or two each and tried out luck winning some goodies.

Then we finished up by having a wonderful meal in the Beachlands cafe. We don't eat there every time we visit as that would make going far to expensive, but today we just couldn't resist the smell of a fry up wafting around us. DD was very pleased with her mountain of baked beans, sausage and chips. As you can see she had a very healthy appetite after our walk.
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Total washout

 Yesterday was awful in the end! We spend the morning huddling in the cafe with a cup of tea, praying that the rain would stop and we could do something. It didn't happen though :(
 In the end we went into Havant and said hello to OH in his shop, and then had a bargain hunt around the local shops. Most of them were closing early due to no customers and bad weather so we found lots of lovely reductions. I picked up;

6 mini Pain au Chocolats - 45p in Waitrose. Waitrose make the best pastries and these mini ones are just right for DD's breakfast.(and mine lol)
Tomato and Mozzarella Wrap - 65p in Waitrose. Again these are soooo tasty but I would never pay £2.80ish for one.
2x British strawberry punnets - 25p each. They were marked up as £2.25 but were originally buy one get one free at £4. So a tasty double discount and a punnet each for a tiny price.
Belgian chocolate cookies - 99p Waitrose. A little nummy treat for OH who is something of a connoisseur of biscuits lol

After our success in Waitrose we decided to head on over to Mr. T and see what he was giving away as well.

2x Finest pasta meals - Originally these were £3.?? each!!! Reduced down to 85p which I think it much more reasonable and certainly a little bit of luxury for me and OH's dinner.
Chicken Pops- £1 these were for DD's dinner as she doesn't always like spaghetti, and it couldn't treat us and not treat her!
Kingsmill 50/50 loaf - 45p cause we needed a loaf, and they don't seem to last more than a few days in our house.

 So it wasn't a complete waste of a day after all :) This morning we have got up and feasted on two mini pastries each with our cuppa (milk for DD. My plans for the day are to make a den with DD in the kitchen for Finding Fun, to finish our homeschool letter task for this week and decide on something nummy to make for lunch.

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Another day by the sea.

  This Bank holiday has been something of a wash out down our way. I was hoping to get some beach combing in but it was far to drizzly even for me lol. So we did the same as before, nice lunch in the cafe and a mooch around the arcades. Being a bank holiday meant all the arcades were open this time, and some of the fun fair rides were running as well. It also meant that the free car park on the beach was £2.50 rather than free like last visit so we park a few roads from the beach for free and walked instead.
 (Above) DD loved pretending to drive on this racing simulator game. She didn't even mind that we hadn't put any money in and was quite contend spinning the steering wheel and beeping the horn.

 OH sneaked this snapshot of me trying to win some sweets for DD.  I hadn't realised my bump had popped out quite so much already.

 As we moved from one arcade to the other DD loved finding puddles to splash in. We had to take her shoes and trousers off in the car for the journey home as they were soaked through. But seeing her so happy and giggling was worth it.

 Who remembers these from their childhood? I used to love "winning" my little egg from these machines. I haven't seen one like this in years and years!! I think the modern ones are so boring and expensive at £1 a go. I also remember there used to be one with a monkey/gorilla as well.

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