Evening beach running

It was nearly midday before I gathered Iselin for our shopping trip before macaroon and cookie making. We decided to make chocolate chip cookies, and raspberry macaroons.

Given neither of us had made macaroons before, it was always going to be interesting... First I decided not to use food colouring in the macaroon mixture, but to sieve the pips out of a handful of raspberries instead and use the pulp to colour them. Then as the icing sugar was up at the other chalet I thought I could get away with using caster sugar instead, but it didn't thicken and the icing sugar had to be retrieved. I do not know what uncooked macaroons should look like but the ones piped onto our sheets looked like they were going to self-level, and form one large macaroon type slab instead....

.... but incredibly, they worked! After a fashion. They were very edible. We had them after dinner and they ALL went! It was good getting to know Iselin a bit more. She and Charley get on too. Charley cried when she sat him down on the floor, he wanted his Iselin back!

While we were experimenting with macaroons, Steve and Ben had a Boy's Day with a busride into Mumbles and a hot chocolate in the café (with the cakes), and a happy hour running around in the play café after that with Nathaniel and Aruna and the twins. Mum and Therese went on a laundry mission. And Steve collected my prescription from the surgery and managed to get me a refil of test strips for my sugar testing kit! After lunch Steve and Mum took the kids down to the beach for icecreams.

Dinner was fraught. Ben has had a very odd couple of days. I think all the kids are knackered. Late nights, exhausting (but fun) days: they are worn out. Ben is. I had to take him and Charley off to bed before dinner. Got them in pyjamas just in case, and Charley fell asleep but Ben didn't - although he calmed right down and survived the rest of the evening.

We even decided on an evening walk down to the beach as the weather had finally cleared up and Ben's mood was much improved as well, Steve wanted to show me where the rainwater streaming down the steps to the beach had cut a gully into the sand at the bottom. Steve and Ben spent ages just chasing each other around on the almost deserted sand, laughing and shrieking - "daddy, I'm hiding, chase me!" We found rainwater bubbling up through the sand in a few places, making its way down to the sea; we found a jellyfish, a handful of cuttlefish bones, and a lego shark! Now that's what I call beachcombing :D