The KC beach holiday

We had a very nice week in Watamu/Nairobi on Sea last week. We were in a lovely self catering house with friends who go to that particular beach twice a year - so they know the ropes backwards. In true Brits 'going to the beach' style, we took everything bar the kitchen sink. My husband had the bright idea of borrowing a friend's trailer as we had asked Florence if she would come with us and we took one of our dogs for good measure/added security.

Florence was delighted to be invited on holiday with us for the first time - and said she had only once before been to the Kenya coast - to Likoni, years ago. I heard her say to the kids;

'you always go away without me but this time I'm coming too!'

Our friends teased - now that your children are practically grown up you decide to bring help? What's that about? In fact it was heaven to have an extra pair of eyes around the pool with 5 children in total and a relaxing holiday for all (given that the house also provided a cook, cook's assistant and lady who cleans/does laundry.....OK, OK, describing all this makes me feel very self concious and decadent!).

The car journey was a gruelling 9 hours straight. My husband blamed the trailer full of food and barrels of drinking water, but it was still 9 hours on the way back too. For some odd reason a kids space hopper even got into a the trailer. It had deflated by the time we got to the beach due to the change in altitude.

'Well, it was next to the suitcases so I threw it in!' said my husband defensively.

I think that July/Aug/Sept is the best time of year to hang out at the coast, because it's warm but breezy and not too hot. It used to be our favourite time when we lived in Dar es Salaam. It's only necessary to sleep under a fan (not air conditioning - which is lucky as the house does not have any). My best bits were;

• fresh fish from the local fish trader (crab for lunch was a highlight for me)
• Walking down to the Italian end of the beach and noticing beach hawkers switch from speaking English to fabulous Italian. Even the beachside shacks changed from being named 'John Lewis' and 'Argos' to 'Roberto Cavalli'. V. funny
• People watching over lunches out at hotel restaurants
• long breakfasts
• The last beach walk of the day with long palm tree shadows and golden light, kids making sandcastles
• Evenings sitting on the roof with a drink, watching comings and goings on the beach
• wave jumping at high tide - in spite of tons of seaweed at this time of year
• beach walking generally and nosing in at hotels and other people's lovely houses
• buying pretty kangas and kids kikoy trousers, flip flops and towels from the beach
• kids getting henna tattoos
• pedalo ride with the kids around the rock - though tough on the old thighs!
• snorkling trip out to the marine park
• watching my husband split his swimming trunks right down the back whilst attempting windsurfing
• full moon
• tuktuk rides with the kids
• first trip to Gedi ruins after years of saying 'we must go to Gedi'
• odd rain showers and lush green in stark contrast to the the rest of the country which is in drought
• being utterly lazy all week

The dog was not sure about the trip at first and when my husband and I went out of the house she tried to run away (out onto the road) and find us/him - which meant that our friends and collective kids had to rush out after the dog, barefoot, in hot pursuit. The dog had her first swimming experiences (didn't really take to it) and twitched her nose at crabs and bits of seaweed which was funny.