I’m lucky enough to live less than five minutes' walk from a stunning beach. I know pebble and shingle beaches get a bad rep, but this sort of shingle beach really becomes epically beautiful when summer hits, and the beach flora comes to life.

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Summer finally hit the south coast over the weekend, and I was fortunate enough to spend a good section of my three day weekend with my daughter on the beach. Friday was a quiet day, as you might expect, with Hazel enjoying exploring the abundant plant life that grows on Shoreham Beach’s rare shingle habitat.

By Sunday, the little one was quite surprised when she toddled onto the beach. She’s used to us having it largely to ourselves, bar a few dog walkers (“doggies!"), and the beach, while not packed, was certainly busy. Quite a few of the visitors had decided to take advantage of the weather by stripping off to shorts to swimwear, which led to a lot of pointing and cries of “rudie nudie!” from the little one. Toddlers lack social graces, it appears.

Still, an idyllic couple of hours, exploring the Beach, throwing pebbles into the water and watching the boats go by. While pointing out the “rudie nudies”, of course.