On Saturday morning, Bradley and I met our friend Di and headed up to Chelmsford to spend the weekend visiting our lovely friends Si and Vicki.
The last time we were in Essex was over New Years, when it was freezing cold and we didn't leave the house, and the time before last August when it was so hot we couldn't bear to stay inside!
This visit we found the weather a little bit of both, it was lovely and sunny, but the wind was blowing a gale. Keen to explore more of our Essex surroundings we headed to Mersea Island, a tiny island off the Essex coast reached by a bridge that frequently floods at high tide. The island is the most eastern inhabited island in England, and while bigger than I imagined, has only a small population of 6,500 people.
We arrived just after midday and headed to the East of Mersea Island to the Cudmore Grove County Park and beach. East Mersea is not as populated as West Mersea, mostly fields and beach and we had the entire beach to ourselves. No-one else was crazy enough to be out when it was so windy!
To get to the beach we had to park and then wander down a long driveway before we walked on top of the sand dunes. This is where it was most windy, and I had to hold onto Bradley to stop myself from being blown away!
I can imagine Mersea Island being a lovely place to spend a few days over Summer, it had a real sandy beach, rather than the pebbles we saw at Brighton Beach.
It was lovely to walk along the beach and enjoy some fresh ocean air. We don't really realise how dirty the London air is until we go away to the countryside and come back!
Bradley finding shells with AJ
Huddling together for warmth!
Enjoying a light breeze..
When the wind got too much, we headed over to West Mersea for some fish and chips. We went to the West Mersea Oyster Bar which is famous for its amazing fresh seafood.
All the tables were booked, but we were lucky to find five seats along the counter overlooking the boatyard.
The food was amazing, they must have given me the biggest piece of cod they had, I couldn't even finish half my meal!
Image care of vickiparr instagram
Image care of josiahparr instagram
Si and Vicki ordered the seafood platter, which looked amazing and really fresh.
After lunch we headed over to West Mersea beach, which is the dedicated 'swimming' beach on the island. It was much bigger than the beach at East Mersea, and had hundreds of colourful beach huts running the length of the beach.
The wind was still blowing, if anything it was worse than the East side of the Island, but we needed to walk off such a huge lunch so we ended up walking almost the whole length of the beach.
Covering up from the wind!
The further down we walked, the prettier the beach huts became. All of a sudden there were lots of pastel coloured huts, looking like tiny houses out of Desperate Housewives.
A day at the beach would be greatly improved if you had a little hut to retire to for lunch and some shade.
The colours were all so beautiful, and some even had tiny stained glass windows.
This cheery little yellow one was our pick of the bunch
We stopped at the corner store and grabbed some water for the long walk back, walking against the wind is really tiring and I was exhausted for all the next day!
Before heading back to Chelmsford we stopped for a play on the playground, which had some of the weirdest play equipment I've ever seen. I wasn't tall enough for some of it so I'm not sure how kids manage?
very cute at least your toe nails looked summery.
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