Bembridge Phase One: Extended Family

My intention - my choice - is not to recall directly the events of that night except to say that we Buckdens and Brisbanes, basking in the peace and quiet of the Bespoke Patio of Ryde, felt much as one would after sticking one's head out of a car window at seventy miles an hour for five minutes, then pulling it in and closing the window - at peace and yet faintly bewildered. We relaxed and got to know each other again.

In the morning we had a complex logistical rendez-vous to manage with various people staying in various different places and the plan being to visit a beach the location of which none of us was certain of. GPS was of no use and so, after a short consultation with a map, we set off to find what we could find in sunny Bembridge.

We ended up driving down a little gravel trck to a little gravel car park; it was lucky that James caught up to us when he did. We parked our four cars as best we could, unfurled our strollers, leads, and other equipment, and then we - and my we I mean Anne, Paul, James, Jane, Erin, Noah, Liz, Ethan, Eloise, Lyra, Nicole and I - trudged off up the beach, accompanied in the loosest possible sense of the word by Beppi the Incorrigable.

Paul had to rescue a ball that Beppi got bored of in the sea. Eloise and Ethan went random-stone-collecting and Erin had a go with the bucket and spade. The wind blew up the beach. Paul was determined to go for a swim and, inexplicably, Eloise and Ethan joined him, but before long it was time to depart for people had ferries to catch.