Merthyr Mawr Warren (........and beach)

13/03/11

The weather was supposed to be sketchy today but we woke up to blue skies so decided to go out for a picnic. We decided on a local spot, Merthyr Mawr sand dunes near Bridgend. I got to work on the picnic, as usual the kids all wanted something different. B.L.T.'s for me and Lor, Tuna pasta for Jake, Ham sandwich (with crusts) for Finn, ham sandwich (without crusts) for Rudi.

We started the walk and within a minute the dogs collar snapped, so we had to make a homemade one out of the remnants and some rope. Jake tripped over a tree root straight into a pile of thorns and spent the rest of the day picking thorns out of his hands with the tweezers from my swiss army knife. It was a bit of a trek to the beach but the boys enjoyed jumping around in the dunes on the way.

When we got to the beach we set up camp and lit a fire. I went for a quick dip, although the sun was out the water felt particularly cold in the wind. I always find the hardest bit of swimming in the sea in the winter is the slow aching walk to get to water deep enough to dive in, sometimes its a struggle to not just turn around and walk back up the beach.

When i got out it was nice warming my toes in the hot sand by the fire. We had food and dozed for a bit, hidden away sheltered by a baby dune. The boys were playing hide and seek in the maram grass and very kindly let us doze.

The walk back was typical (you'll know all about it if you've got young tired kids) 40 minutes of "are we there yet?" "my legs hurt" "will you carry me?" etc.

When we got home the kids jumped in the bath, i split some logs for the fire and we had a nice cup of tea.