Malone has a carefree day at the beach

It’s another beautiful day in paradise. In Brighton that is. I wonder how on earth I can be considering moving back to London. I’ve lived here for 10 years now and I still feel like I’m on holiday when the sun is out.

I spend June to September wearing a bikini top just in case a sunbathing opportunity comes up. Visiting London, everyone asks if I’ve been on holiday. I say: “Nope, I live in Brighton by the beach.”

I don’t holiday abroad, so I don’t miss sandy beaches; I embrace the pebbles! Not literally. Well, literally if you lie down when you’ve forgotten your towel… Which is quite often. When you live next to a beach you don’t really make an event of a ‘beach day trip’ – you just pop down for a bit, and, if you do end up being mental enough to go in the freezing sea, you just dry off on your cardi and regret it on the way home!

“My little girl finds pebbles and shells and bits of seaweed, which she then puts in my pockets”

A pebbled beach is also great for kids, as they can find all sorts of stuff to collect which they then make you carry… My little girl finds pebbles and shells and bits of seaweed, which she then puts in my pockets without telling me. I wondered why it was so hard walking back up the hill on the way home… and it wasn’t just the heavy wet cardi.

I think this will be the first summer where I can actually enjoy the beach as a parent as now she is a bit older. When I was pregnant I walked every day to the beach, swimming and lolling about with the ocean supporting my massive bump.

It was pretty much the only place I felt comfortable by the end of pregnancy. After she was born, I couldn’t carry the shaded pram on the beach by myself. Then the next summer, she was toddling about, putting pebbles in her mouth, falling over a lot and had a beach-enjoyment capacity of about 17 minutes.

Today we sat and gazed at the sea, ate our lunch, my little girl played with pebbles and put them in her own bag. I just stared off into the distance, listening to the waves with the sun on my face, enjoying the hot breezy silence, pretending I was waiting for a Pimm’s to be brought to my imaginary table in the Rivera.

I was brought back to reality by being nagged and whined at: “Lolly? Lolly?! Can I have a lolly now, Mummy?” Not much has changed in lolly-world since I was a girl, they still make Fabs. I buy her one, still trying to weigh up the pros and cons of London vs Brighton. In London I will have more support with family being around, but here in Brighton I can get a better tan… Hmm, decisions decisions.