Worthing beach trips and why there wasn’t enough time to celebrate on Mother’s Day this year – our columnist shares her thoughts

Who decided it would be a good idea to lose the hour as we ‘spring forward’ on Mother’s Day?

If there’s a day to celebrate all things mummy, then I want a full 24 hours.

My daughter was so sweet this year, and aside from insisting she bought me a bag of fudge from Roly’s Fudge Pantry in town with her own money (delicious, by the way), she also wouldn’t let me do any of the tidying up after our roast dinner.

But I still felt like I’d been cheated of an hour of kicking back with my feet up!

I’ve come up with a much better idea for how we deal with the idea of putting the clocks forward...

Let’s do it at 4pm on a Monday. Wouldn’t it be great when you’re flagging on the first day back at work after the weekend if you got to 4pm, and suddenly the clock spun forward to 5pm and the day ended?!

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my job (if my bosses are reading this, please don’t fire me!), but who wouldn’t rather be spending their time catching up on Inventing Anna on Netflix and scoffing directly from a tub of Cream Egg ice cream than working?

And I could really have done with that happening this week. After another really busy weekend, I woke up tired on Monday. And suffering from a cold (**sounds the ‘not Covid’ alarm**).

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I spent Saturday taking my two children to the beach with my friend, her two children, and another friend thrown in for good measure.

Most parents will know you never get to finish a conversation when children are in tow. But as we met up we didn’t even quite get to start a conversation as one child fell over, they all wanted to walk on walls, and there was some minor squabbling over who was holding whose hand. Exhausting! We thought we’d deal with the excitable children by taking them into some shops on a busy Saturday afternoon (yes, we are crazy), ending with five children literally in a sweet shop.

Each ended up with a bag of pick ’n’ mix from I Love Candy, at which point the two weary mummies insisted on getting a strong coffee. Because, it turns out you’ll both be quite tired if you stayed up drinking together until almost 2am the night before (if this was a WhatsApp message, I’d probably insert a winking face emoji here).

High on sugar, we let the kids loose on the beach and they spent a happy hour or two just playing in the sunshine.

How do people who don’t live by the coast cope? It really is just the nicest place to be on a sunny day.

You might think I’d have an early night, but no, I was heading into Brighton for a date-night with my husband.

We had tickets for the Stereophonics (you can read my review on our website and watch a video of me with some remarkable bags under my eyes after the gig) and had a lovely dinner first at Pho.

After a day spent with a lot of children, it was really nice to spend quality adult time together. Because life’s all about balance.

Although, having said that, the highlight of my week was an impromptu trip to the beach with my children after school, to take advantage of the fab weather.

We played at Splash Point, had an ice cream and then played a rather limited game of hide and seek in the tiny sand park (why, oh why, couldn’t this busy park in the middle of the town have been bigger?!). It was perfect.

My daughter said it was the best surprise ever, and my son was ecstatic. Parenting can be hard, but it’s the little moments like these that remind you all your children want is you. It made me a very happy mummy, indeed.

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