Things I've learned on our beach holiday

The most important ingredients for a great beach holiday are the love of your life, and the two most beautiful boys that ever there were. 


1 For a successful beach holiday, you need to be able to walk off your deck, take no more than 20 steps, and be on the beach. 


2 You have to be able to see the waves from your deck, while you're sipping your gin and tonic. 


3 You have to have a swimming pool at hand, so that you can swim there to wash the ocean off. And to swim in when the ocean just gets too rough. 


4 You don't need a big house with a big kitchen for a successful beach holiday. In fact, the small kitchen at your beach house teaches you how to use space efficiently, and makes you think about how your kitchen at home is designed and equipped.


5 There's nothing like swimming in the ocean to give your big boy a confidence boost. 


6 There's nothing like a tidal pool to give him that confidence boost while keeping him safe from the pounding waves and sharp rocks. 


7 It's always good to have a safety net when you're on a beach holiday. Like two tablet computers loaded with movies for boys to watch when the weather is miserable. Because even Lego has it's limits... 


8 There's no such thing as too many Easter eggs. 


9 Hipster restaurants are everywhere. Can they still be hipster then, if they're so ubiquitous? 


10 Pinterest looks like a great idea. But where do you find the time to participate, if you're not stuck in a beach cottage on a stormy afternoon with nothing else to do?


11 There is such a thing as too many scatter cushions. 


12 There is no such thing as too many towel hooks in a beach cottage. 


13 A beach holiday never requires as much clothing as you think it will. Always pack half the clothes, and double the undies. 


14 Children make friends wherever they go. Adults could learn much from the simplicity of this. 


15 There's nothing like a beach holiday to create the space for a family to reconnect. 


16 The Internet yields many wonderful finds. Our beach cottage is just one such find, and we will be returning here again and again. 


17 To a little boy, having the single bed with the tiny window with the peek of the ocean is much more important than having the double bed with no view. 


18 Building sand castles is as much fun for grownups as it is for little boys. Probably more so. 


There are probably many more lessons to be learned. But I'm off to make the most of another important holiday lesson: When one's husband tells one that one should watch Game of Thrones, one should trust his judgement and watch it. ;-)