Burnham on Sea - anyone living there?

[2spangly]

We have decided to move to Burnham on Sea area (we think)in about 6 weeks as my partner has a new Bristol job and we wanted to live on the coast.

I have 5 month old and 2 1/2 year old - both boys.

Just wondering if anyone knows what sort of parent/baby/toddler groups or activities there might be? My toddler loves music and dancing. We will need to access a nursery too if anyone has any experience of these any info would be appreciated. Is there a local mums meet up group or something to keep me sane?

Finally (and maybe should have been first on the list) - are there nice coffee shops that fit pushchairs?

I have checked out the local website so have some general information, but always good to get ideas from people who live there or nearby.

Thanks

There are other coastal areas much nearer to Bristol than Burnham on Sea. You may like to look at Portishead, Clevedon or Nailsea which are much nearer to Bristol and have good schools and facilities for young children.

Hi 2spangly, There seems to be a few playgroups/toddler groups down here although I haven't tried any yet. We only moved here 3 weeks ago, so I'm gonna venture out with my three year old this week and take him to one or two groups, so I'll keep you informed!

It is really nice down here, we moved 300 miles and don't know anyone but everyone has been really friendly so far.

Being a seaside town there are loads of cafes depending on your taste I'm sure you'll find one that suits you.

Good luck with the move.

Hi Jonads
Yes we are moving from London (not quite the 300 miles that you have moved) so we don't know anyone there yet either :) We are intending to get there the mid to end October so let me know about the classes - that would be great.

When we looked around we thought everyone was quite friendly and we located a few cafes that sold tea in a cup that was not made of polystyrene.

Still not found a house yet though - something will come up fingers crossed in the next few weeks. As we are renting before we buy (if all goes well and we like it lots) we had a look at a few properties. One was really nice apart from the fact that there was a annex in the garden with other people renting it and the property expected us to provide a lawn mower and tend their garden - seemed a bit cheeky to me!

Enjoy your classes and the last few sunny days - we had a lovely day saturday in the sunshine and were amazed how fast the tide came in!

Hello Crazymum
Thanks for the advice - I am quite taken with Clevedon and if we are having no luck with rentals in Burnham in the next week or two we might start to look further up.I think we are quite taken with the beach at Burnham!

Yes I agree that the beach at Burnham is nice but you do need to look at the bigger picture as well e.g. what are the schools like and what is commuting like. Bristol to Burnham would take about 45 mins to 1 hour and that part of the M5 does tend to get very congested at times.

I am not a native Bristolian and was brought up in a small seaside resort near Blackpool within walking distance of the beach. It was great when we were young children but there wasn't much for young people and teenagers to do as the majority of residents locally were retired. Am not sure if Burnham is like that though.

Hope this helps with your decision.

Hi again,

We considered Clevedon, we really liked it and initially focused our search there but when we were getting nearer the time we had to move we found this and love it here.

It was always the beach that drew us to Burnham, living here though I like it all!

Clevedon is so much closer, it's just about 20 minutes from Bristol, it takes DH an hour on a morning to get from here to uni, with parking and everything, and about 40 minutes home. He's not too bothered yet but the novelty might wear off soon, lol!

I tried a playgroup in a church hall the other day and it was really friendly, everyone was smiley and welcoming, I'm going to try two next week!!!

I've just seen an advert today in the free little paper that comes through for 'music with mummy' classes in Burnham aimed at 1-3 year olds, you could google that for more details.

Try Gumtree in Somerset for a house, also Rightmove, West coast properties had some nice ones a while ago on there. It is a bit cheeky of that house isn't it! Strange what some people ask for!

Good luck with the search, something will come up, ours came up just a week before we moved!

Jo x

Hello Jo,

We have to give up with Burnham as just nothing was coming up for what we wanted. We broadened our search right out to Clevedon and Portishead and have finally ended up finding something in Weston S-M! It seems rentals were either really cheap (and not very nice) or really expensive and huge and there was nothing in the middle i.e. 3 bed family sized house. We also have a cat which some places would not take. So we are in Weston for 6 months in about 2 weeks time and looking forward to a bit of old fashioned seaside.

I hope you are still getting on well in Burnham? It was still our favourite place but not much use to us without a house, so now we'll have to track down music and dance classes there instead. Thanks for all your advice though about Burnham.

That's okay, we quite like Weston too, it's got everything you need there and the beach is fab. The only thing that put us off was the size of the place, it's HUGE!

We're suffering with this house not having central heating and it's not even winter yet!!! I think we'd have a problem finding something else too, but our eldest has really settled here.

Good luck with the move,

Jo x