Bank Holiday Beach Picnic at Chesil Beach

Over the bank holiday we decided to take the kids to explore another new beach and while we were there we thought it would be fun (and save a bit of money) to have a beach picnic. We went to Chesil Beach on the South coast, which has some beautiful views and is a fun place to visit. If you look on a map you can see a little strip with water either side, separated from the mainline. (here’s google maps so you can see) It seems like a really unusual and cool land formation.

This was a last minute trip, as is usual with us. I do wish I could get a bit organised for once and plan my things in advance – maybe one day I’ll achieve that! But anyway, as we got near to Chesil Beach we decided on the picnic so I nipped in to Morrisons to get a few supplies. We were lucky to be chosen as a #MorrisonsMum for Britmums and had been in to our local Morrisons a few days before to do our weekly shop. I was really impressed with Morrisons and will definitely be making an effort to visit their stores more regularly so I was pleased to see a Morrisons nearby and knew that it would be a great place to buy some picnic food.  After doing our main shop there we had been given some vouchers for 10p off every litre of fuel at Morrisons which my other half was quite pleased with, so he was very keen to stop there for our petrol as well as our food. We do drive around a lot on the weekends (for eg this beach is 2 hours from our house) so a good deal on petrol is always appreciated*!

For the picnic I got everything ready made, because we bought everything on route, but luckily Morrisons have a great range of prepared salads, sandwiches, cut fruit and more so it did the job perfectly.

We got: Morrisons Layered Salad £1.89 – Morrisons apple juice £1 for 3 – Morrisons cheese twists £1.09 – Morrisons sandwiches £1.79, £1.00 & £1.25 – Morrisons snack mango £1.25 – 2 packs Morrisons prepared cucumber and carrots with dips £1.25 each – 2 7up 1.15 each – Multipack of Pombears £1 – Morrisons paper bowls £1.50. This came to £15.57 and then we got 80p off in multibuy savings bringing it down to £14.77 which is just under £3 per person for the 5 of us and we had loads of food to go around!

We did actually buy a lovely picnic blanket too but then we found these picnic benches nearby to the visitor centre and a wooden play ship which the boys loved, so thought this would be handier.

After eating their picnic the boys had lots of energy to run off and explore the beach. It is super pebbly! And you have to climb up hill a bit through the pebbles to reach the sea so it is a little bit of a work out for their little legs. It’s a really different sensation to walking on sand or normal flat ground. It’s a great way to get some sensory exploration on the go, with the texture of the pebbles under foot and in their hands as they pick them to collect and play with, the sound of the seagulls, the feeling of the sea breeze and the smell of the sea air. I love it!

We did collect a few pebbles to take home so that we can make some crafts and activities for them, not these small ones – we found some lovely big round flat ones which will be amazing to make story stones.

All of the boys love to skim stones into the sea, especially Mr Z.

For all of us its a chance to connect with nature and enjoy each other’s company and the quiet relaxation of being next to the sea.

 

 

Here’s the deal I mentioned about the fuel at Morrisons:

 

Morrisons have also permanently rolled back loads of prices in all areas of their store with their new I’m Cheaper campaign which we tested out as part of #MorrisonsMums

 

As I mentioned at the start of the post, we also visited one of our local Morrisons – the new Watford store, and I was pretty impressed with it. The meat and fish counters were not open at the time we went so I’ll need to go back and check those out but the range of fresh fruit and vegetables is really good, better than other supermarkets we usually go to. What I really liked is that Morrisons felt much more spacious and less over crowded than other supermarkets so it made a much more relaxing trip. They also have some different products from other stores and their own brand Morrisons goods seem to be a great quality with some fantastic prices like a pack of 6 bread rolls for only 32p, large bottles of flavoured sparkling water for  49p each, Morrisons jam 65p, Morrisons grapefruit in juice 55p. They also stock all the main brands which we usually buy, with offers on some great brands like Ben and Jerrys ice cream for £2.49

I got the basics for our weekly meals which all worked out pretty reasonable for eg: rice noodles £1.29, Morrisons stir fry £1.89, Morrisons stir fry sauce £1.00 comes to £4.18 which is less than £1 per person. Morrisons pasta sauce at 75p and bag of pasta at 95p  comes up at about 20p a serving for a quick and easy fuss free lunch for the kids. 

For more places to visit with kids in the UK, follow my Pinterest board:
Follow Anna – In The Playroom’s board Places to go for kids on Pinterest.

Linking up to the Britmums Morrisons linky and to Country Kids:

We were given £80 in Morrisons vouchers to enable us to try out their stores and write this post.