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Day one of the holiday proper and I could have slept all day (having not really slept all night), but we did manage a jaunt out to the beach in the morning and were able to socially distance fairly successfully. I had taken a book with me but there was zero chance of reading and the hour or so was taken up entirely with accompanying the kids down to the sea and making sure they didn’t get kidnapped, swept away or lick the faces of virus casualties.
So mainly stress as always, but the sun was shining and it was fun heading through the shallow water to the crashing waves with my adventurous daughter. She knew her limits and didn’t want to go too far, but it was a rare occasion when she needed me and didn’t feel she was already capable of doing it alone and we had some valuable father/daughter time.
We had a more relaxed afternoon, and I am not sure that my exhaustion was fully down to the disturbed night of sleep. As always my body recognised that suddenly the onslaught of work and deadlines was over and decided to shut down. Usually this combines with getting ill of course which adds a nice level of jeopardy to the holiday this time round. But we didn’t risk a Saturday night out and stayed in and had pizza and beer and watched the FA Cup. I had forgotten how much of a family tradition that had been for me as a kid - back then it all started in the morning and the match was in the afternoon and we’d have bowls of crisps and sweets (I think I was more interested in those than the football I suspect) and then watch the match as a family.
My kids were a bit too young to get into the game and my wife had nothing but disdain for the thing and I would have preferred to have been asleep, but the tradition has still been slightly resurrected. Last night they’d been too excited to sleep, but tonight they actually asked to go to bed and were asleep pretty quickly. And though we tried to watch Jaws 3 on TV (not in 3D but you could spot the bits that were meant to be) we weren’t far behind them.
