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Just got Alice's book as well, looking forward to reading it! Beautiful cover. Your boathouse beach trip sounds so lovely - can't beat a bit of time by the sea! ๐ŸŒŠ

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Such a beautiful cover! And yes, the sea is always a good idea. ๐Ÿ’™

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Why Women Grow is our current book club choice. Iโ€™m thoroughly enjoying it and her podcast...I loved and really felt her piece on the first bleary days of early motherhood...which Iโ€™m still very much in with three little ones 4 and under.

I love your writing and your trip sounds stunning. How you describe your trip make me close my eyes and think of all the times Iโ€™d swam in the sea and had the sun on my back, utter contentment ๐Ÿ’™

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Floating in the sea is the best kind of bliss! Oh I feel you with the early motherhood days. My youngest is ten now, but those day are still so close in my memory.

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I bought a copy of Elkin's book on my last visit to London en route back to Paris where I lived a long time ago and ate it up in one bite! After reading your post I am reviewing sweet memories of reading Oxenbury's picture books to my son when he was a child. Do you remember Pippo I asked him just now, oh yes he does!

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Isnโ€™t it brilliant? I shall definitely re-read again sometime. Ahh, Oxenburyโ€™s picture books are pure magic. She captures childhood so beautifully.

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How evocative your description of the beach holiday is, I can hear the masts clanking and picture the vast skies. We stayed on the Suffolk coast in Walberswick earlier this year and I loved walking early each morning to watch the sunrise. And then you find the cottage belonged to the family of Helen Oxenbury! Wonderful. I too loved her illustrations. Thank you for the book recommendations.

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Oh I love Walberswick so much! We crab-fished there every summer when I was a child. Have you read The Sea House by Esther Freud? Itโ€™s set in a fictionalised version of Walberswick. And yes, it was such a joy - almost as if we had stepped right into the Bear Hunt!

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Itโ€™s such a lovely village, almost from an Enid Blyton adventure. I havenโ€™t read that, thank you for the suggestion. I heard the Freud family have a house there.

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