All right. That's enough rain. Stop now.

So. There we were in the last week of term. Slightly benign weather, sunny in a mildly promising sort of way. We were all looking forward to the holidays.

Six weeks of not having to rush out of bed in the mornings to go to school, but instead to fling back the curtains to the beams of a new summers day, throw on a couple of light things and dash off, clutching sandwiches, to one of Pembrokeshire's gorgeous beaches.

After all, what is the point in living in a popular holiday destination if you can't go and lord it down on the lovely sands of Saundersfoot, Tenby, Whitesands, Amroth, etc, while casting pitying glances on the poor holidaymakers who have go home again. I might as well be back in dear old Worcestershire with the nearest beach, well, where is the nearest beach to Worcestershire? We always used to go to Pembrokeshire...

But I haven't set foot on a single Pembrokeshire beach yet this summer holidays and with only one week left and the weather forecast not exactly promising I don't expect to have the chance.

And I'm cross about it. How dare the horrid weather spoil our plans? Rain, rain and more rain. I'm fed up! And I'm feeling like a totally rubbish mother. Leaving aside the fact that I ordered a kitchen to arrive on day one of the holidays (the first black mark for me) I seem to have completely failed to provide the wonderful sunny summer holiday experiences that memories are made of.

Take this week, for example, we have been shopping for new school clothes, shoes, trainers and Brownies uniform. Rosie went to a party, Hannah went to a friend's house, Hannah went to a party. We played with plastic ponies inside, in between showers we played with the real (slightly damp) ponies outside. I planted out the sprouts and the kales and a few pak chois and grumbled about the weather. Not really the stuff of an Enid Blyton novel.

We should have been on the beach with homemade lemonade and thick slices of pie, fish paste sandwiches and a super cake. We should have played beach cricket (or, more likely, boules with two identical sets - confusing, but funny) and paddled in the sea chasing waves and pretending that we know what to do with a body board. Instead with did that, once, way back in May, when we kidded ourselves that we would spend all summer on the beach.

Now I have one more week left to make this summer perfect for my two little girls. One more week of devoted maternal attention. We will go to the 'family attractions' that they so adore, so what if it is raining, we WILL go to the beach, and to a friend's house for lunch, and to the cinema (and to the hairdresser too, but I haven't told them about that one yet).

Perhaps, as last year, the last Monday before school claims them again will be warm and sunny and we can go to Carew and watch the swans on the Cleddau.

We will have a week of doing tom fool things so that memories, once back in school uniform, will be of a summer that was great, after all.