October 22, 2026

What the Sea Gives Me, and Why I Protect It at All Costs

Every Thursday, I protect thirty minutes to walk by the sea. It gives me room to breathe, time to listen to my children and a little perspective. And I hope that, years from now, they will find themselves returning to it, carrying something of these afternoons into their own lives.

I had an argument with my eldest daughter this week about an extra football pickup on a Thursday afternoon. I said no. She told me I could do it, so why wouldn’t I?

From her perspective, it was another pickup. A small adjustment to an already busy afternoon. From mine, it was thirty minutes of something I have come to value so deeply that I am no longer willing to give it away.

For the past six years, I have finished work at 3.30pm on a Thursday. Those afternoons have always revolved around swimming, first together, and now ferrying children between three lessons in two different pools, both beside the sea. Somewhere between the drop offs and pick ups, I found a thirty minute window to walk on the beach.

It has become one of the most precious pockets of time in my week.

I know how that sounds. Thirty minutes. A walk. Surely there are other opportunities. But with three children, work, a house and the ordinary demands of family life, time without somewhere else to be is not easy to find. Whether I am walking alone or with one of the children, this half hour offers a little space in an afternoon otherwise governed by the clock.

We moved home to the coast six years ago, and I was reminded of something I had known before we left. The sea does something to me that I have never quite been able to explain. It regulates me. It calms me. It makes me feel safe. It gives me space when my head is full and holds me and my thoughts and my tears and everything else in between.

I can arrive carrying a difficult conversation, an unfinished list or a problem I have been turning over for too long. I walk, look at the water, notice the light changing over the headland, and something begins to shift.

The problems have not necessarily changed. I have.

Something this valuable cannot simply be squeezed in when everything else is done, because everything else is never done. But the reason I protect these walks goes beyond my own wellbeing.

My youngest son can sometimes be the one whose stories get lost in the rush of family life. There are evenings when bedtime arrives before I have properly checked in with him, before I have sat down and listened to what he has been waiting to tell me.

On our Thursday walk, we have time. We talk, collect things and notice things. Sometimes he tells me something that has been on his mind. Sometimes the conversation wanders. Sometimes we say very little. My job is to be there, to listen and to let him take his time.

I want him to know that when something is bothering him, he can put his thoughts into words without needing an answer immediately. That he does not have to keep everything inside. These are things I hope all three children learn through doing them, over and over, until they become familiar.

This week, after the argument in the car, my eldest, my youngest and I walked together. We were all wound up, caught in the familiar pressure of getting everyone where they needed to be.

Within two minutes of stepping onto the beach, we had settled.

I noticed because the change was so immediate. The children started laughing, running ahead, collecting things and calling each other over to look. We noticed the light, the shapes in the sand, the treasures washed up along the shore. Before long, we were simply enjoying being together.

Nothing had been resolved. We had not discussed who was right. Yet by the end of the half hour, we felt calmer, happier and more connected. The argument no longer occupied all the space between us. We were grateful for what we had noticed and for the simple pleasure of being there together. And when you reach that place of gratitude, something shifts. The problems that felt so pressing begin to lose their grip. You gain perspective. You can think more clearly, respond more generously, work things out or decide that something is not worth carrying with you after all.

That afternoon reminded me how easily we underestimate the things that help us feel better. Sometimes, before we can work out what to do about a problem, we need enough room to see it differently.

The sea gives me that room. And I want my children to know how to find it, too.

Because I will not always be there beside them.

One day, they will have lives of their own, dealing with things I may not know about or be able to help them through. I will not always be the person they turn to first, nor should I expect to be. But I can help them discover now what steadies them, and recognise when they need it.

A walk cannot fix everything. There will be disappointments, heartbreaks and days when nothing seems to help. Still, there is something valuable in remembering that you have felt better before, that the intensity of a difficult moment can pass.

I collect driftwood on our walks and bring it home to the wicker basket beside the fire. I love that small connection between the place that settles me and the place where we live our lives. That the sea is not somewhere we visit occasionally when the weather is good, or a pretty backdrop for a family photograph. It is part of our life. It is somewhere we go when we are happy and somewhere we go when we are not. Somewhere we walk, talk, laugh, collect things, work things out and sometimes say very little at all.

I want it to be a place they know they can return to, even when they are grown.

So when my daughter asks why I cannot do one more pickup, the answer is not that I do not want to help her. It is not that thirty minutes on the beach matters more than her football. It is that I have learned to recognize the value of something that would otherwise be very easy to sacrifice. There will always be another pickup, another demand, another perfectly reasonable reason to give those minutes away. But there will not always be this particular afternoon, with these particular children, at these particular ages, walking beside me on this particular stretch of coast.

Perhaps, years from now, one of them will have a difficult day and find themselves heading for the sea without really thinking about why. Perhaps they will walk, look at the water and begin to feel that things are manageable again. They might remember the driftwood, the treasures in the sand, the laughter after an argument.

Or perhaps they will simply know where to go.

That is what I hope these walks will give them: a way of looking after themselves, a feeling of safety they can return to, even when I cannot be there.

And that is why I protect this time. For me, certainly. And for the possibility that something we do together now will stay with them long after these Thursday afternoons are over.