A DAD has thanked the community of Criccieth for their help in reuniting his young daughter with a cherished blanket.
Gary Anthony Weaver visited the town with his family on Friday, 23 July.
The blanket belongs to his 14-month-old daughter, Millie Jane, and the family believes the blanket dropped from the buggy when moving over a rocky part of the beach.
Gary, who is from Prestatyn, told the Cambrian News about their day out, the search they carried out to find the blanket and the help they received from the local community.
“We woke Friday morning and just spur of the moment decided to go for a drive,” Gary said.
“We didn’t have a destination in mind, we just followed roads until we came to Criccieth and instantly thought ‘This is beautiful’.
“We carried on round until we came to the beach and again were taken by how calm, relaxed and easy flowing the place was.
“We have five children aged from one to 12 years old, so finding a nice quiet place away from busy life was a godsend.
“We parked up and as usual my wife got the kids out of the car whilst I got the buggy and bags, etc.
“We went down the slip towards the beach and then noticed all the pebbles so my wife carried the baby whilst I dragged the buggy and bags across the pebbles towards the water.
“We think this is when we lost the blanket. Not realising straight away, we carried on to the water and stayed a good while whilst the kids swam and admired the jet skis and boats.
“When leaving back up the strip we noticed the blanket was missing so, instantly knowing what it means to our daughter, we went up and down the beach more than once – to no avail.”
Gary said the family tried buying replacement blankets for his daughter, but unfortunately they did not work.
He continued: “After searching and asking around we gave up and headed toward home to try and get to a local shop that we thought may sell similar blankets.
“We bought two blankets but they didn’t do the trick.
“She was very unsettled that night so I put a post on Facebook after searching for a local group to Criccieth.
“We were overwhelmed with people messaging and commenting saying they had seen the blanket or they had the exact blanket that we could have as a replacement.
“Then we got a message from an elderly lady to say she went down to the beach at 9.30pm and collected the blanket for us and put it on her wall for us to collect when we can.”
The family went back to Criccieth the following day, Saturday, 24 July, to collect the blanket, having received lots of help online from locals.
He added: “We made the drive the next day to collect the blanket and just the overall reception from the community was beautiful. We felt like everyone knew what that blanket meant to our daughter.
“To many it’s a raggedy smelly blanket but to my daughter that’s her comfort and we would drive for 20 hours to get that smelly blanket.”