My mums wish for her 70th birthday was to spend it on holiday with her two daughters and now her two grandchildren. Looking for somewhere suitable with something to occupy a 2&1/2 year old, and be a nice place to be in, not too far to drive for each of us, my sister Imogen found the beautiful location of Staithes on the North Yorkshire coast.
Now there is only one problem with Staithes. You can’t park outside the houses! Parking in a place that you weren’t really meant to park to get as close as possible (still a 4 min walk), made things hard! Now Imogen had warned us to pack light, but this was only my second trip away and I still hadn’t sussed what I needed for Evie.
Carrying a screaming baby, trying to feed her in the sling, whilst unloading clothes bags, nappy buckets, swim stuff, food, a birthday cake…… made for an interesting and slightly stressy start to the holiday and a very sore thumb, which I nearly broke by slipping carrying too much at once. Immediate resolve, bring less, eat as much food as possible so it doesn’t have to go back to the car!
Next crazy thing. The house was lovely but did have the stairs of doom as I called them! I learnt from above though and carried either luggage or baby, never both.
Still, it was all worth it. My mum had a lovely birthday. I think I put 70 candles on the cake (I lost count). We had a lovely time at the beach, Sam building sand shaped he immediately smashed and playing in rock pools, we went for a nice walk along the cliff tops, and I can thoroughly recommend the food at the pub overlooking the harbour, where we had our dinner.
Another day we did a family bike ride, from Whitby to Robins Hood Bay and back along the disused railway track. I towed Evie in The Chariot, as it’s become known, and Imogen had Sam on the back. Once we got everybody comfortable (took a few attempts), we had a good ride there. Whitby has lots of bike stands so it was easy to park up and we went to the beach.
Coming back was not quite the same delight. Sam was tired and did the typical two year old scream. Then Evie decided she had had enough and spent the latter part of the journey screaming. This turned the end of that journey into one of misery. No one likes their baby to be unhappy, but when there is only one way back to the car, you’ve just got to crack on. Still overall the day was positive and full of nice memories. And good practice for our upcoming Danube cycle tour trip.
The rest of the holiday (it was short and flew by) was spent enjoying Staithes and Sam getting to know me & Evie, which was a delight. I swam in the harbour each day which was gorgeous and we hung out at the beach and had ice-cream.
The only downside to a holiday is that it has to end! And those journeys back to the car weren’t much easier!
Around the world with Evie Bean 