Scarborough

We weren't sure what we were going to do today and made a last-minute decision to go to Scarborough. We knew it was going to be a nice day, but we weren't expecting it to be as hot as it was. The rest of Yorkshire clearly was though, hence why everyone was on Scarborough South Sands. Orla told us before we got out of the car, "I didn't like our second holiday [Ardnamurchan] because there were no children on the beach for me to play with and it wasn't sunny." She declared this beach "fun and exciting", much more her kind of thing. Except for when we took her for a donkey ride. She wanted to do it, but as soon as Ed sat her on the donkey she started kicking like one and demanded off. There was no way we were going to persuade her. Even when we showed her a photo of her three-year-old self happily riding a donkey, she still wouldn't do it.

Places like Scarborough on days like today are not my idea of a good time. I can see we're going to have some difficulty finding holiday destinations that suit both mine and Orla's needs. We hired a couple of deckchairs and sat on the beach watching Orla dig holes and fill them in again. She was playing pirates, finding buried treasure (bits of rubbish). We had a couple of unfortunate incidents. Conor was sick all over Ed (most unusual, but he was bouncing him up and down just after a feed) and when we told Orla it was time to go, she threw sand at us (directed at Ed's face). It's probably the most wilfully naughty thing she's ever done to her dad. She was very sorry once she had borne the crushing weight of his disappointment in her for a while. We're all friends again now.