Summer Memories by Jayne Amanda Burford

Summer. It’s that time again.

We pack up our clothes in the battered brown cases, covered with the stickers of the seaside places we have been to. Us three have a new dress each, that mum paid weekly for, from the Pippa Dee party, our new Clark’s sandals, and new hair ribbons. The excitement is like a little air bubble at the bottom of my tummy. We’ve all counted our pocket money from our saving jars and tucked it safe in our little beaded purses. I don’t really understand why we go to bed, because we don’t sleep, just lie down waiting for Mum to get us up in the middle of the night. any minute now … up we get, creep out and down the path to the creaky old back gate, squashed into the back of dads brown Allegro, with boxes of food in the footwells because the cases are piled into the boot. I can smell the fresh sandwiches that mom has made for our stop on our journey.

Within minutes I’m fast asleep.

I feel the car come to a halt, it’s daylight now, we’ve stopped in a lay-by we all, get out to stretch our legs. Mum hands out the sandwiches and pours us all a cup of tea in plastic mugs, I swear it’s the best sandwich and mug of tea I’ve ever had. After we’ve all eaten and been down the bank behind the bushes, we clamber back into the car, don’t know why I’m always in the middle!

The motion of the car soon sends me off to sleep again. I wake with my sister’s arm sticking in my ribs, and the other one dribbling on my shoulder, but I don’t care, I can see the sea!! 

I shout it out, “I can see the sea!” They wake, and we all start laughing, we’re nearly there!

We pull up, right next to the caravan, immediately we jump out, happy to at last be at our destination. Mom proudly opens the door and we all eagerly rush in, mom checks out the bedrooms, the bathroom, looks in every cupboard before nodding her approval to Dad. Dad takes himself off to bed, shattered from the long drive.

We walk down the hill that takes us to the beach, the seagulls calling to each other, scavenging for food, the smell of the sea, and the sound of the waves is wonderful and strangely familiar. We take off our sandals and socks and run as fast as we can to the sea, the shock of how cold it is makes us scream with laughter, splashing water at each other. We peer into the water looking for shells and misshapen pebbles, and when we find one shout out, “Look at this one!” as we start filling up our buckets with our treasure.

The sun is hot on our backs, but we don’t care still we search for more treasure, over by the rocks taking turns to lift them seeing if crabs are hiding with their peery little eyes hoping not to be found and dumped in the hot buckets with an inch of water in. As we trudge back up the hill, with our buckets laden with shells, pebbles and tiny little crabs, we can feel the sting of sunburn on our shoulders, knowing that the coldness of the calamine lotion will be welcomed when we get back.

Mum & Dad are sitting outside waiting for us, I can smell the bacon and eagerly rush to wash my hands, holiday always makes me hungry!