It has been pretty grey and miserable around here recently (metaphorically and physically) and I’ll be honest, it has affected my mood quite a bit and I started to be blind to the beauty of life. So making the most of a sunny Wednesday morning and an unusually early start to the day, the boys and I headed for the beach. Learning from past experiences, I suited Toby up in his rain-suit so that when he inevitably fell in some body of water, it wouldn’t result in a trip straight back to the car. Ezra was on my back in the carrier and my camera was around my neck – being at the beach, in the sun, with my boys and my camera, it’s fair to say I was in a happy place!

What was I saying about Toby falling in some body of water – right after jumping in the puddles Toby fell over. We hadn’t even made it to the beach yet, *eye roll*, but he got up, didn’t make a fuss and we carried on our walk. Thank goodness for rain-suits eh!?

We walked our usual route through the sand dunes but when we got to the top of the incredibly steep dune, Toby took us along a different path to the one we usually follow. Adventuring through the spiky marram grass, we eventually we made it onto the beach before Toby insisted we walked back along the path we’d just trodden in order for him to slide down the steep dune.

Toby loves to slide down the dune and I love capturing the scale of his small body on the dune – I’m not sure how many versions of this same photo I have.

I’m always wary of falling on my bottom when walking down this dune as I’m not always the most sturdy on my feet, especially on unstable ground with a toddler on my back, but I made it safely to the bottom still standing upright.

We ended the walk with a shell hunt as we walked back to the car. I was surprised as to how many shells we found due to a conversation I’d had with a friend earlier in the year. We’d been walking along the beach in Tresaith, which is along the coast going south, and we’d noticed just how many shells there were on the beach and made some comment about the lack of shells in Aberystwyth. Yet, here were Toby and I finding numerous shells amongst the carpet of pebbles. Sometimes it’s difficult to spot the beauty in the mundane of our everyday lives but if you look, really look, you will find it. And just like the numerous shells we found, you can find numerous beautiful things.

What beautiful things will you find today?