Wearing a teeny weeny bikini and other summer clothes…

For those of you that know me or have read my blog in the past, you will know that each year my family and I like to head to the mountains for a ski holiday. This year things went astray when this happened.

My son unfortunately smashed his fibula and tibia at the end of February and was put into a full length leg cast. We were obviously all a bit down. After several weeks of answering to ‘Mum…mum…can I have….food/drink/entertainment etc etc etc’ I decided that we would all benefit from a holiday at the earliest possible opportunity so booked us a May half term break.

With insurance now being an issue and as I wasn’t sure what Milo’s physical condition would be like I opted to stay local and booked a caravan on the Isle of Wight.

I last went to the Isle of Wight when I was just 6 years old and back then I had a magical holiday, I saw my first shooting star, my first red squirrel and had a boy ask me to dance at a disco. It is a holiday that I have always remembered and hoped that both myself and my family would feel the same.

Fortunately I wasn’t disappointed. The Isle of Wight is a not just a typical British seaside resort but an island of them and there is so much to do for families. The weather was poor to start so we headed to Sanddown with it’s pier and refusing to be hampered by the cloud I donned my bikini in the hope of a tan.

We spent a magical afternoon at Alum Bay and the Needles. This is an area on the west coast that is famed for it’s geology. Over millions of years the layers have formed and the earth shifted to reveal picturesque cliffs and over 21 different colours of sand. We took a boat ride around the bay to see the full view and you can see the coloured sand in the background. Although the sun was out, it was cooler at sea, so I decided to cover the bikini up.

One of my main reasons for taking Milo here was because  the cliffs are reached by a chairlift, we had great fun pretending that we were on out ski holiday afterall. “Look Dad, no ski’s”

Another day was spent walking in Parkhurst Forest in search of red squirrels. The Isle of Wight has escaped the introduction of grey squirrels and is famed for its population of reds and Parkhurst Forest has trails that you can follow and a hide to sit in, in the hope of spotting one of these shy creatures. Alas on this occasion we were not so lucky.

Whilst we didn’t see any squirrels and I didn’t have any boys ask me to dance on this trip,  I did have a wonderful holiday and the highlight really was watching Milo progress over the week. I had not realised when I booked this holiday that the recovery process for a broken leg is so long. He had come out of his cast just a few weeks earlier and had only just learnt to weight bear again, the week before we went he was still fully reliant on his crutches. Over the course of the week, his confidence grew and grew and what had started as just being able to walk a few steps, turned into half hour stretches and even an hour in the swimming pool by the end of the week. I am very proud of my son and this trip will always be remembered for the strength  that it gave to him and me.

Oh and one final memory…..we got to see the Queen Victoria as we crossed back to Southampton. She really is an impressive looking ship.

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