St Ives, Cornwall - August 2013

Our last holiday of the year saw us travelling 7 hours down the country to Cornwall - St Ives to be precise

I took masses of photos and have tried to narrow it down to my favourites, please feel free to skip if you are here for crafting inspiration

The harbour and one of the beautiful beaches surrounding St Ives

Walking down to St Ives from our campsite ( Polmanter)

One of the many tiny little cobbled streets, full of quaint little cafes, stunning studios and beautiful blooms

The boys were determined to try and learn to surf, and by the end of the week they had both mastered the art of picking the right wave, springing up onto their boards and riding in to the beach

I introduced all my kids to water very early in their lives and taught them all to swim from being toddlers, Amy and Robbie took to it straight away and loved being in the pool,  but AJ had a morbid fear and I seriously worried that we would never entice  him to swim let alone swim in the sea or have his head splashed.

Thanks to one of my mum's friends -  Wendy, AJ - as these photos go to show has quite clearly overcome that fear and absolutely loved the water. Tears stung my eyes when I saw him confidently run into the waves and throw himself into surfing and swimming. Remembering back to his shivering little form absolutely terrified and clinging onto me for grim death, it was hard to believe the difference. I cannot thank Wendy enough, this is all down to her patience and ingenious little games and pool toys  - Wendy if you are reading this - thankyou so much.

And the big guy did good too, he never gave up, was resolutely determined to stand on his board and ride it to shore

And just to prove that boys (regardless of age) are always little boys at heart, never too old to play in the sand and bury each other

One of the rainy days was spent at the Eden project

The vision of these biodomes as you enter the site is truly awe inspiring

We loved seeing all the weird and wonderful plants and flowers, but if I am honest my favourite part was spotting all the fabulous sculptures and objects of art

I have no idea what the boys found so amusing in the Mediterranean biodome but I love this photo of them

One of our favourite days out was a pretty little harbour town called Mousehole

We bought little nets and the boys went searching for crabs among all the rock pools ( and yes all THREE boys did some crabbing)

We told AJ that the fish and crabs liked to lurk under rocks, hiding from preying eyes and prodding nets and fingers

We also visited St Michael's Mount

This was one of the highlights for Neil and I, we left the boys playing on the beach and took a little boat out to this stunning island

The building now belongs to the National Trust and has been sympathetically renovated for over three years, steeped in history and absolutely stunning

The views from the roof - that pale line you can see running through the sea from the island to the harbour is the Giant's Causeway. You can walk the causeway during low tide, unfortunately we arrived too late in the day and the tide was in, but if we go back we have set our hearts on walking it

These guys amused me, made up to look like statues - until you dropped some pennies in their buckets, they then came to life ( frightening the life out of unsuspecting passers by)

I was just hoping the little doggy wasn't hoodwinked too - was waiting for him to cock his leg !

I popped some pennies in the jesters bucket, he sprang to life, began juggling, pulling silly faces and blew me numerous very loud lip smacking kisses

And I can't leave without signing off with a couple of photos of our tent set up this year - we had a new smaller kitchen tent this year, much easier and quicker to erect

And finally a view from the tent, we could see the sea every morning as we sat sipping our coffee and munching our croissants - truly blissful