Today was a day when the stars aligned. Dog grooming appointment and high tide .No need for fantasy swimming, the real thing at Wembury was glorious. Then basking in the sunlight, all while the dogs were being primped just a mile in-land.

The real thing was very glorious but a few hours later as the tide dropped a massive field of seaweed revealed itself. I considered if crossing it  was a sensible idea and decided that on balance it was. As it turned out balance was the problem and I soon slipped on the rocks made slippy by layers of seaweed. Like a wallowing hippo I splashed around in the shallow  water. Neither getting deeper or getting out was an easy option.

Out was the sensible thing as other swimmers made the same perilous journey with similarly awkward results.

My bathing costume had become a bag of writhing slippery seaweed. Our beach day was over. The outdoor shower was too feeble to move the loathsome stuff to any great extent. My journey home was deeply uncomfortable. Maybe fantasy rock pool swims are a good idea

Coastal Grandma style has been a bit of a summer thing for the last few years. Regardless of ‘style’ I am, at many levels a Coastal Grandma even at my least stylish.

I live by the the sea.

My two children have made me a coastal grandma, although I am called Nana. I have three granddaughters who visit me by the sea.

Sometimes I wear beige/pale/cream clothes. But not always. Today coastal nana is wearing a denim blue t-shirt dress and a pair of heavy-duty green crocs with bright blue straps. While she does the post-visit laundry.

What is the ‘thing’. Certainly hard work in the home and in the workplace. Being there always for the significant people in my life and to an extent many others with whom I have shared a space or a moment. The ‘ thing’ is also about recognising and enjoying all the lovely moments of a life and surviving and then thriving with resilience all the bad stuff that has ever been done or said to me, or about me to others. It is about using criticism and harsh words as rocket fuel to jet me to my Coastal Space. The gorgeous thing about being a Coastal, or indeed Coasting Grandma is not about location , for me that is serendipitous. It is about a state of mind where the wonder of a two-year-old can mingle with a lifetime of experiences both good and bad and everyone gets something magical from the interaction.

Even doing the laundry had its magical moments today. One bed contained a Schleiche Lion wearing table glitter as a crown and a Schleiche Deer wearing a Sylvanian waistcoat. The other bed was scattered with lavender heads. Enough to have charmed a visiting Queen of England to stay a month in our spare room.

Coasting Grandma is probably a more appropriate title. Useful in so many varied locations.

This could be me dozing in a quiet leafy glade. Hair wild and a sleepy head resting on moss. The care of three fabulous granddaughters makes me yearn for just a tiny daytime snooze with dappled sun dancing on my face . But they, the granddaughters are busy little people and snoozing is not on their game plan.

Time with them all is a gift that should not be wasted by snoozing for either Nana or Nona or indeed the dogs.  We all need to take some time to sniff the flowers together.

Dozing can happen later.