We're All Going On A Summer Holiday

By now everyone apart from the very unlucky has broken up

from school and stretching before us all is anything between six and eight

weeks holiday. A long time for children and parents alike and I imagine most of

us are looking forward to our two weeks away from the grinding, domestic and

work routine we are tied to most of the year.  

So where are you all going? Is anyone doing anything

different this year? Does anyone have any recommendations?  My favourite holiday to date was a fly drive

around California. It was before children and apart from the flight, nothing

was booked, we flew by the seat of our pants.  Gone are those carefree days and holidays are now planned as precisely as a military invasion. 

However, a great holiday we have had with the kids was during the very hot

summer of 2006 in the Isle of Wight. 

Seaview, a place where time has stood still and beaches are adorned with

nothing more than sand, buckets and spades, crabs, sandy sandwiches and a lot

of mini boden!  A seaside town where you

can go for a traditional tea or a hotel supper in The Seaview Hotel, one of the

top ten family hotels in the UK according to the good hotel guide 2009. And the

locals are as lovely and honest as you are likely to meet.... I should know I

drove off with my handbag momentarily on the roof of the car only for it to be

returned to me later completely intact!

This year we have three opposing trips planned. First we are

off to Treowen, a grade 1 historic

house in Monmouth, Wales, for a week, with thirty other adults and kids.  An enormous manor house with beautiful

grounds the house accommodates all 33 of us comfortably and its minimal

‘dressing’ means there is little to damage or break.   Despite the fact it has rained on our three

previous holidays there, we always find plenty of ways to entertain the kids

during the day and once they are tucked away at night, it has the perfect

dining room for long, boozy, sociable evenings.

Then there is the annual camping ordeal, I mean trip. Every

year my good friend and her three crazy kids and me and my three crazy kids

decide it will be fun to sleep under the stars for a week, eat nothing but

baked beans and do away with washing.  We

have settled for Roundhill

in the New Forest as our perfect back to basics setting and despite a nagging

anxiety that I’m not a natural camper we all have the best time. The children

have more freedom than they have ever experienced before.  The campsite is big and fades into the New

Forest without actually being confined. The kids hop onto their bikes and

disappear for hours and despite a few hyperventilating moments when we’re

convinced they’ve jumped onto a New Forest Pony and galloped off into the

distance they always return, usually when hungry!

If you haven’t camped before I highly recommend you give it

a go. All of the daily worries and trappings are quite literally left behind,

leaving you to really take stock, relax and remember what life’s really about!

Just remember to take your Cath Kidston table cloth and tree lamps though, as

keeping up with the neighbours still applies in a field.

Last but certainly not least we’re off to Estepona in

Spain.  My necessary, annual heat hit

where I finally thaw out after the long wet and very cold winter. We have

booked our flights through Monarch

Airlines, by far the cheapest in our experience, even after all those

sneaky extras have been added on during the booking process. Although of course it

does mean we are flying at some ungodly hour and all the benefits of our

recuperation will disperse into the warm Spanish midnight air as we wait for

our 3:00am flight home.

Happy holidays to you all and please do share with us your

experiences; good, bad or just plain hilarious.