To be beside the seaside

Tuesday was our annual trip to the seaside town of Rhyl.
OK yes after all the fantastic summer weather we have been enjoying we chose the worst day of the month so far to go.

I got up Tuesday morning with a contingency plan of going to the Sealife centre at Brum instead but I had a look on the Rhyl webcam and it didn't look so bad. So even though it was spitting with rain here I decided to go ahead with our plan and off to Wales it was.



As it happens the weather wasn't too bad once we finally arrived in Rhyl. It had been lashing it down all throughout the journey and when we changed at Crewe it was so horrible I was considering turning back. However as the train stopped in Rhyl there was no more rain and although it was quite overcast it was very warm indeed with a slight breeze.

If you have been reading my blogging since day 1 you will know that our trips to Rhyl are mostly packed with visiting all the arcades and trying to win as many keyrings as we can. We seem to have become bored with this persuit though as by 2pm we had visited all the arcades along the front. So for the first time we made the walk right along to the end where the (rather pitiful) pleasure beach stands.

I bet the place was thriving once but now it is just rundown.


There are lots of units all boarded up and hanging broken signs and I guess it was the weather keeping all the punters away. There were a handful of tourists in the cafe area but nobody on the rides. I would have let the kids go on the bumper cars only it isn't much fun if there is no one else on there to bump into.

There was 1 moment of excitement when DD managed to win a dalek keyring.


We crossed over to the beachside of the road as there is no point going to the seaside if you don't at least visit the beach and see the sea.

You can't see it on this picture but there is a wind farm on the horizon

We walked down the front and then we popped into Billy's Sports bar for a sit-down and a drink. Something I never do when I am out with the kids is go for a proper drink as I never saw the point but I was so hot and my feet were aching I thought we all deserved a sit down.

I couldn't get over the fact that they have a vending machine for alcoholic drinks. I guess it is that long since I went to a nightclub...

Once we were fully refreshed, we carried on back along the arcades until the children were all spent up.



By 5pm the rain started to pour and as we were all exhausted we made our way back up to the train station. For once we were very lucky with the trains and with no hold-ups and no packed trains we got back very comfortably about 8.30pm. Finishing the day off with Pizza that we ordered in and an early night I think it was a successful trip.