Northern Ireland part 2: what the beautiful beach means to us

Continued from the previous travel post from our family holiday in Northern Ireland. Today’s post is about a little bit more personal issue about the beach and my girl. 

Northern Ireland landscapes were simply spectacular. They are truly beautiful and peaceful. We visited four beaches in 2 days, including the famous Giant Causeway, which was so interesting to see and we had a lovely walk down there in a fresh air. But all in all, we love White Rocks the best. It was such a calm and clean beach. I’ve never seen any beach that more beautiful than that before, certainly not in UK. 

During our stay, pretty much every night it had rained as weather forecast said, so we were expecting walking around in a rain coat. But guess what? We had so much sunshine during the day time! Hurray!

So we quickly changed the plan and drove toward the beach. At this point, we did not know about White Rocks beach but it was the first one we could see, so we decided to have a go. As soon as we walked down to the beach, our daughter Sabrina was absolutely excited. 

“Mummy, can I take my shoes off?” she asks. 

“Off course you can.” 

Off she went with her smile and giggles that has no end.
The best part of our family holiday it was.

Sandy beach must have been a family holiday destination. Children love sand and water, full stop. We all know that.

But we didn’t really do that up until now, due to the fact that Sabrina has had a doctor warning for sand playing.

As I mentioned before, my girl has eye condition called Peter’s Anomaly and has cornea transplanted on her one eye. Other eye's cornea is very thin. Although both corneas remain healthy today, the loss of sight from the infection and the risk of rejection of graft still remains too, which can be caused by the damage of the surface of her eyes by rubbing sandy eyes, so her doctor always cautioned us ever since. She was basically too young to be able to handle sand carefully due to her dexterity and also to follow our reminder of “not to rub”. So even at the nursery, she did not play with sand, unless closely supervised like 1:1, which wouldn’t be most of the case. I used to feel bad and maybe over protective, but we could not weigh the same as missing a fun play for a short while to her difficult start we went through and the miracle she had gained (her sight). 

But that slowly has changed. As I wrote last summer (in this post), Sabrina had a little “sand debut” at the age of three. It was the moment that she experienced the sand for the first time and was also the moment that I almost cried. Thereafter, we visited the beach near us for several times to let her experience more sand plays at the beach, the feel of waves and the smell of ocean. She loved it of course, but we still remained as careful as we always did. For that I guess I may not have been freeing her as much as I should. 

The thing is that this girl learns by herself all the time. Through a little experience of her world. Risk taking is always there in order to have fun. So this time, I let her go. Wild and free as she can be. Oh, she was ecstatic! Running around with her barefoot. Splashing the water. Stamping the sand and wetting her bottom. I can still hear her laughs and giggles when I see those photos. As normal kids do. She was having such a great time. 

The beach gave us the most beautiful memory of our family.