Seeing he f re

The sleepy village with its rocky, windswept beach is the last place I’d want to leave London for…

It’s Sophie. The wind’s in her hair and she’s dancing, her hands thrust deep into her coat pockets. Her pirouette is more Riverdance than Swan Lake. She hops up and down without leaving a single footprint in the hard-packed sand-ripples the tide’s left.

“Can we get a dog?” she asks, the wind blushing her cheeks a deep, dark pink. “I mean – if we move down here?”

“What kind of dog? I’ve always fancied a spaniel. It’ll keep your dad company while I’m working and you’re at school. “If we move, that is…” Sophie, dark-haired and enthusiastic like her father, skips over to a rock pool.

“Look, there are fish and crabs! Can we get a bucket and set them free, Mum?”

She’ll spend all her time here trying to identify species of bird, fish and crab, not happy until she knows them all by heart.

“Don’t worry. The sea will set them free when the tide comes in again.” The blasting wind takes my voice ocean-wards too. “Where’s your brother got to?”

She points vaguely and I jump over the rocks to get a clearer view. There he is…

Jack is six now, two years younger than his sister. He stands with another little boy. Where did he come from? That’s Jack for you, he can make friends with a

She HOPS without leaving a single footprint in the hard san ri les

lamppost. He’ll bring it home, offer it orange squash and cake and a bed for the night. His new little friend’s parents, further down the rocky beach, call to their son. Off he runs to join them.

Jack kangaroo-jumps from rock to rock. His eyes are a soft brown, like mine.

“He goes to school here,” he says, meaning the boy. “He says there are only eleven in his class.”

“Well then, if we move you might get the teacher to yourself a bit more often. Would you like that?”