From the waters of Zakynthos, a letter about cousins, family holidays and how confidence is quietly rebuilt through play, patience and having somewhere safe to swim towards.

It’s nine o’clock in Zakynthos. Day one of our holiday, complete.

Today was one of those sun-soaked days that seemed to contain far more than the hours should allow. We started with an early swim at the villa, had breakfast, then made our way down to the beach. From there, we climbed into kayaks and paddled across the bay to a little beach bar for lunch. You and your cousins played on paddleboards, jumping into the water, clambering back on and repeated again and again. 

Lunch was at Nobelos, which I’d recommend to anyone visiting this part of the island. Fresh fish, long tables, a beautiful view and no real reason to rush anywhere afterwards.

RIght now, the heat is easing and the villa has fallen into that pocket of calm between the end of a long day and bedtime. In fact, you are fast asleep right next to me, which took all of 3 minutes until you drifted off. Swimming costumes and towels are hanging over chairs. The pool floaties are slowly drifting in the pool. 

From the villa, we look straight out across the Ionian Sea towards mainland Greece, around twenty-two miles away. To our left is Kefalonia, where your mum and I used to come on holiday before we became Mum and Dad to you.

There’s something lovely about seeing it from here. A small part of our old life, visible from the new one. This is our second consecutive family holiday in Zakynthos, and I already feel as though we’re building the kind of memories that will be brought up around tables for years to come.

The long lunches. The crossword clues. The stories from our childhoods, which seem to become more dramatic with every retelling. You and your cousins moving between the pool and the sea, occasionally returning to the villa when you need feeding.

The only thing missing is your Uncle Adam and his family. Family holidays have a way of making you especially aware of the empty chairs. You can feel grateful for everyone gathered around the table and still miss the people who aren’t there.

Both things can be true at the same time.

I’ve spent a lot of today watching you with your cousins. Cousins sit somewhere between friends and siblings. You share grandparents, family stories and pieces of the same history, but you each bring a different world with you too. You can go months without seeing each other, then pick up exactly where you left off.

I hope these holidays become part of the glue between you. That one day, long after the adults have forgotten the details, you’ll remember racing one another into the sea, trying to balance on paddleboards and negotiating the terms of an ice cream before lunch.

Because this is what summer holidays should look like. But more importantly, this is what they should feel like.

For you, this summer has also been about swimming.

At the beginning of it, your mum and I both carried some guilt around your confidence in the water. When you were very little, we enrolled you in swimming lessons. You took to them quickly and your confidence began to build.

Then we stopped.

I’m not entirely sure why. Life became full, as it often does. Routines changed, weeks passed and swimming lessons quietly slipped out of the diary. We probably told ourselves we would return to them soon. But we didn’t, at least not with rigorous regularity.  You never lost your love of being around water, but we could see that some of your confidence had begun to disappear.

Your confidence tank was emptying.

That’s the strange thing about confidence. We often speak about it as though it’s a permanent part of someone’s personality. You either have it or you don’t. But I don’t think that’s true.

Confidence is built through evidence and exposure. Each time you try something, you collect a small piece of proof that you can do it. Eventually, all those pieces begin to form a belief about yourself. This summer, each of our holidays has accidentally become a swimming camp for you.

In Marrakech, your mum’s patience helped you become comfortable putting your face beneath the surface. At the beginning, goggles and going underwater weren’t on the menu. By the end, you were jumping into the pool, disappearing beneath the water and waving back at us.

Then came Cornwall. This time, it was the open sea. You jumped from the side of a boat without hesitation, had your first surfing lesson, got thrown from the board more than once and still kept asking to go again.

Now we’re here in Greece, where I suspect most of your holiday will be spent somewhere between the pool and the sea.

Today, I watched you jump from the floating pontoon and swim between the outstretched arms of your grandad, your uncle, your cousins, Mum and me. You climbed up the ladder, took position on the pontoon and jumped again. You weren’t thinking about technique or distance. You weren’t wondering whether you were any good.

Perhaps that’s how children build confidence best. Not by constantly being told they need to improve, but by being given enough joyful opportunities to forget that they’re learning. Just warm water, your family and somewhere safe to swim towards. It made me realise that confidence doesn’t always need coaching. Sometimes it simply needs the right conditions.

Your mum and I could have stayed stuck in the guilt of stopping your lessons. But guilt only looks backwards. Our job now is to help you refill the tank.

Not by pushing you into the water before you’re ready, but by getting in beside you. By celebrating the small steps. By helping you associate the water with laughter, adventure and the people who make you feel safest.

The general feeling after watching you today is that you’ll be properly swimming by the end of this holiday. But whether that happens tomorrow, next week or a little further down the road doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you can feel yourself getting closer.

And perhaps that’s something most parents need reminding of occasionally. We will miss things. A lesson will disappear from the diary. A routine that was working will fall apart. Life will get busy and, despite our best intentions, something important will slip.

We can punish ourselves for that, or we can notice it and begin again.

The tank can always be refilled.

It’s funny, every time I arrive in Greece, the person at border control opens my passport and makes the same observation.

“You were born in Cyprus.”

I was. Thanks to your grandad’s posting at the time, I can claim to be Greek Cypriot. Kind of.

One day, you may return here with a family of your own.

Perhaps you’ll remember the villa, the kayaks or the ice-cream shack that you think is totally free.  Or perhaps the details will blur. But I hope the feeling remains.

The feeling of being surrounded by family. Of having nowhere else to be. Of spending all day in the water and discovering, almost without noticing, that something which once frightened you doesn’t frighten you anymore.

Your confidence tank is filling up again. And after only one day in Greece, it already looks close to overflowing.

Love you always,

One proud Daddy x