A week in Whitby

I’ve been staying in Whitby, with my husband, the two grandsons and, for part of the week, our middle son, who is amazingly patient with the little boys and very good at distracting them and calming situations. He’ll make a terrific dad, I hope.

Whitby is an excellent holiday spot, but there are considerable contrasts to Swanage. Swanage is definitely more sophisticated, and groomed, whereas even quite smart places here are somehow brasher and in your face. Of course, there are lots of pretty rough establishments too, with bouncers in the evening. 

Beach huts in Whitby

The little boys loved the beach. It is actually a beautiful beach, smooth, firm sand with sweeping tides, so very clean, and just a few good big rock pools at one end. They played defending a castle from the tide – they’d never done it before and had the most tremendous fun. One thing we did notice is the size of the earthworks (“sand castle” just doesn’t do them justice.) People arrive on the beach equipped with garden spades; I was quite envious, especially since Phil kept pointing out how much bigger other people’s castles were. I only managed a bit of a swim because we had to keep an eye on the boys jumping the waves. On the phone to his mum, the older grandson was squeaking "I went in the sea and it was really rough and I was all on my own and the waves were going right over my head and I was all on my own and it was really rough" etc. etc. I had to take the phone and say that it wasn't quite like that, or she'd have been leaping in the car to come and rescue him. 

The other thing the boys really enjoyed was the port and the boats, and the 199 steps. We avoided mention of Dracula as much as possible. We didn’t want nightmares! There are loads of alternative shops – folk instruments and music, straightforward Goth, ironic Goth (sundresses printed with pink and blue skulls) proper antique, vintage, fossils and shells, gifts of all kinds, as well as the jet and jewellery shops.

So now we’re home and our son in law has the week off to look after the boys, so we are having a rest! But we’d definitely do it again.