A weekend break to the Isle of Wight

Friday midday we set off to the Isle of Wight, Alex had been asking to pack our bags every 5 minutes all through Thursday and on the Friday morning was running about like a mad man!

We had a 2.30pm ferry booked and had quite a reasonable journey down, Alex was so excited to go onto the Ferry, loved watching all the boats in the docks, and the cars coming on and off! We headed straight for the top deck, the sun was shining and we were all excited to be getting away. I was very surprised to find Alex brave enough to stand by the edge over looking the water, he is usually so scared of drops and heights of any description.

We went straight to our holiday bungalow at Colwell Bay, we were the first of James' family to get there as his younger brother's had school that day, it was quite nice to have a few hours to ourselves in settle in. The bungalow was much nicer than I had expected, I hadn't really known what we were going to exactly as James' Mum had booked it.

We had two rooms, one a double and the other a twin room, they were spacious enough and had very comfy beds. The lounge/dining area was well furnished and the kitchen and bathroom had all we needed. I was pleasantly surprised that they had left some bread, milk, biscuits and bottled water for us which meant we didn't need to go shopping that night.

The beach was about a 3 minute walk for the holiday park, although it was very windy we took the boys out, as Alex was so excited to get to the beach and we had a few hours to pass before the others got there. We practically had the beach to ourselves as it was a bit chilly in the wind. Alex just loved getting his bucket and spade out-although he kept throwing all the sand our direction. Sam was just happy sat on the rug watching his brother play-until he face planted the sand that was!

What felt like our own private beach!

We enjoyed some fish and chips for dinner that evening, and after an excited Alex said his hellos to his uncles and had some of T's birthday cake we all settled down for the night.

The weather wasn't great on Saturday and Sam and me were so bunged up, we'd not had a great night sleep because of this and Alex got up at 6.30! So by 10 we were wondering when the others would be up and about and were getting itchy feet and were more than ready to go out when they were up-one downside of going on holiday with others!

We went to the Needles which seemed quite out dated, and to be honest I didn't particularly enjoy it, could have been the weather, or my bad cold induced, sleep deprived mood but it wasn't particularly for me! The kids however enjoyed filling their shapes with the coloured sand, and actually watching the glass blowing was  quite interesting-and warmed us all up!

The afternoon was much more me, we went for a lovely drive along the cliffs and found a long beach to walk along, we spent ages here, the boys searched for dinosaur footprint rocks, threw rocks into the sea, and just explored and ran free. The sun had come out again, and my mood had definitely lifted! It was just what I needed!

On Sunday we enjoyed an afternoon after a morning on the beach at Carisbrooke castle (next post) and then had a nice meal at The Wight Mouse Inn, the food was nice, and it has a good park/green for the kids to run about in, the views are stunning and we stayed a good food hours to watch the sun set behind the cliff.

On Monday we had more fun on the beach before heading off to Osbourne House (future post) and heading off in the evening to go home.

We had a lovely weekend, and my views on the Isle of Wight have changed-although I think the weather made it and not sure we would have had as much fun had it not been so nice!