Hanging on

Buckfastleigh Butterfly House and Otter Sanctuary today. Probably a bit too long in the car but I'm determined to make each of Richard's days off count.

I am such a sucker for butterflies. At one point it occurred to me that I was the only one still having fun when Richard and Tess had had enough.

We very nearly had a trip on the South Devon Steam Railway too, but it would have added a good hour or so to our day out and we needed to get back for the dog - and poor Joel had run out of bread.

An ordinary walk on the beach this evening turned out to be a bit scary when Tess found herself caught in a rip and she couldn't swim back to us. After a few seconds of me saying 'I don't like it. I don't like it - she's too far out,' and building myself into a panic, Richard passed me his tshirt and his car keys and swam in after her. Once he'd got her into the shallows and safely on her way back to me he went back to push 2 young bodyboarders into safer water.

Tess will always remember how her dad is life-saver now. I like that she can think of him like that but I don't like that she had to go through that fear. Or that I had to either.