Catching the Travel Bug!

It’s wrong to describe it as a regret because I wouldn’t want to change a thing about what I have now, but looking back the one thing I wish I’d done was travel. I mean properly travel. My Mum is petrified of flying so I never left the country until I was 19 when I successfully auditioned for a choir who went on a number of international tours. However, my Mum’s fear of flying transferred on to me so I turned down all the longer flights – looking back I can’t believe that I could have travelled all expenses paid to Japan, America and Mexico to name but a few and I said no!

When I met my husband, he also couldn’t stand flying so we never really went on holidays just the 2 of us, something we both now regret. We never really felt the urge to go away so just didn’t! Again, we both now can’t believe we didn’t jump at the opportunity – what were we thinking?!

When we had the children, we wanted to make sure that they had experiences they would remember and vowed that we would go on holiday at least once a year. When they were small we went camping in this country, camping in France and did little mini breaks. When money was tight we had some really cheap breaks cashing in on Tesco Clubcard points to get some nice days out too.

Eventually, when the children were 5 and 3 we took them on a plane! We braved it and went to Majorca for a week and that’s where it all started – we were hooked! Aside from my son cutting his head open on a shelf in the room (yes not even whilst having fun in the pool or anything!) and being told he couldn’t swim for a week (the duration of our stay!) we had the best time ever, and thinking with the glass half full, the medical treatment my son received was the best service ever, he was stitched up within 20 minutes of his accident. We stopped at the travel agent on the drive home from the airport and booked our next holiday!

Since then we’ve been back to Majorca and this year for the first time, the 4 of us left Europe as we went to Turkey. These holidays are proper fun in the sun types of holiday, but given that my husband and I are both teachers we try to get away for a few days in almost every school holiday. It’s amazing how your perspective can change. I used to long for the holidays to have a rest – now I feel like I’ve wasted the holidays if we don’t go away somewhere!

It doesn’t always cost us a lot of money and we try to mix things up so that sometimes the holidays help the children learn something. Last year we went on a road trip to Edinburgh staying in 6 different £29 Premier Inns and completely abusing our National Trust membership as we stopped in Birmingham, the Lake District, Liverpool, Blackpool and of course, Edinburgh. The whole week was planned with military precision but only cost us £300 for the whole week – not bad for a family of 4!

We’ve already planned holidays to Normandy, Amsterdam and Egypt over the next year as well as mini breaks. Sometimes I get down about the fact that I always have an endless list of work I need to do, and even though I’m not physically in work I still have things I have to do, but somehow the thought of having somewhere to go where I will be with my special 3 people, no iPads, chores or emails to interfere spurs me on.

We’ve well and truly caught the travel bug – if only we could now win the lottery too!

Road Trip!

Half Term seems like such a long time ago already – we’ve had Halloween and Bonfire Night since then after all, and at work I’m now in full ‘Carol Service and Nativity’ mode! Until last year, we’d never really ‘done’ holidays, mostly because my husband and I were both petrified of flying so we were pretty limited on where we could go. However as the children started growing up, we both knew that we didn’t want them to be plagued by the same fear, so we booked a holiday to Majorca, just a couple of hours on a plane. We could do that, right?!

As soon as we saw the children’s excited faces when we took off, my husband was completely cured of his fear. I took a little more persuading, but we coped enough to do it again this year. It was a special holiday. We really pushed the boat out and opted for all inclusive luxury. It was fab and we’ll definitely do it again at some point. The luxury was fab, but the best bit was the family time togetherness, without the distraction of the internet, TV, housework, just general day to day life, so we decided that we were going to go away more.

Being teachers, we are blessed with the school holidays, but not the option of cheaper holidays in term time (actually, I’m pretty relieved that I never have to enter that debate about whether it’s right or wrong!). Anyhow, I digress…

We made the decision to go away for the October holiday, but on a limited budget. With a little research (mostly on my husband’s part it’s got to be said), we managed to go away for a week on a mini road trip taking in the Midlands, Lake District, Edinburgh, Blackpool and Liverpool – five Premier Inns over six nights, each at £29 a pop – bargainous! Armed with a bag of food to avoid extortionately priced services food, our National Trust membership cards to break up the journey with gorgeous walks and fresh air and in car DVD players for the children, off we went on our adventure!

We had plenty of treats along the way too – typical touristy things in each of the cities we stopped at, a trip to a water park, the zoo, some lovely meals out, Premier Inn breakfast, oh their breakfasts were amazing and the children got theirs free but I thought at one point it might turn into that Simpson’s episode where Homer takes advantage of the all you can eat deal!

A week away for a family of four, in the school holidays for not much over £300 in total. Every night we had a clean and comfortable place to stay, we were never hungry, we had so much fun and most of all, we had that all important, undistracted family time (although nearly a week later and I still can’t shut my wash basket)!

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Isn’t it Ironic?!

Well as the words of Alanis Morissette rhetorically ask, it’s quite ironic, that my longest blog silence this year has actually been because I’ve been having so much fun – on HOLIDAY! If you scroll up, you’ll see that my last post was written complaining that holidays are overhyped and how I can take them or leave them. I guess that’s still true (bah humbug indeed) but at the same time, our little family have probably just had the best holiday ever!

It’s not all about the going away, although we did have have a couple of days in Cardiff, I just love love loved the quality family time, which I think before my daughter started school was something I was beginning to both take for granted and also not appreciate if that’s possible. My intense working hours during the term, meant that I found myself living for holidays just so I didn’t have to go to work, rather than for the opportunities the time off opened up for the family.

People also said that when we moved away from Bournemouth, we’d miss all the fantastic things that part of the world offered us (I think most people just thought we were crazy to move away from the beach, but for someone who hates sand as much as me, that was no big deal at all!)

So why was our half term so great?

We had the in laws to stay (honestly, that was a fab start! No less because they babysat and my husband and I stayed out til 3:30am, I don’t remember the last time that happened)…

We crossed the bridge to Wales…

We did lots of really cool experiments at Techniquest (a totally brilliant family time if you ever find yourself in Cardiff!)…

I'm having an out of body experience!

We had one big sleepover in a hotel room (or should that be one big ‘howlongcanyoustayawakeover?’)…

Like Father, like son in so many ways...

We saw the Millennium Stadium…

We went to a real Castle (the best afternoon of the whole half term!)…

We went swimming, walking, to the park, and soaked each other with fairy liquid bubbles…

We went to birthday parties…

And we had a lot of lazy lie ins (bliss!)…

I hope you had a lovely half term too if you have little ones, and sorry for the slightly indulgent post, but I just wanted to share it with you, and prove that I’m not totally Bah Humbug about holidays!

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Bah Humbug!

Some people live for their holidays. I’m not one of those people. I like my house and the time I spend in it, and I like having my comforts around me.

Before we had children we’d go away from time to time, but usually just a weekend somewhere in this country. The only ‘proper’ holiday we went on together was our honeymoon.

The sophisticated Newlyweds...

Since the children, we’ve had two big holidays. Once to Disneyland and once to a different bit of France, a Summer camping one. We’ve been camping with friends and had a few days away here and there, but nothing compared to what some people do or more importantly wish they could do.

The thing is I’m not really bothered about going on holidays! But it’s that time of year when we’re starting to think about whether to go away or not. We went to Disneyland Paris last year, but because hubby is a teacher we’ve always been restricted to going on holiday in the school holidays so have the premium to pay in terms of price too. And we’ve been on one holiday when we went to a fab campsite in France, and while I loved the freedom that being on holiday gave us, I actually felt more uptight than I do at home.

The kids and my husband loved every minute of it, but I still had to cook and clean, about 10 times more often than I do at home because we were in such a confined space, and when I did come to relax, I didn’t have any of my comforts around me. And being a vegetarian in France isn’t that easy either! Chips, bread and cheese for a week wreaks havoc with your digestive system!

I know I sound like a right grump, and as hubby points out, it’s not all about me, so if everyone else is having fun should I just grin and bare it? After all, I know when I get there I’ll enjoy it more than the thought of going. Or should I be thinking sod it, it may not all be about me, but surely some of it should be about me?! Holidays don’t come cheap after all.

In which case, I need a holiday that offers

• nice weather
• lots of fun things for the family
• plenty of variety of food
• no cooking or cleaning
• one where I don’t have to share a room with the children for a week

Oh, and because we made a deal that I’d earn enough money to pay for said holiday, it needs to be achieved within my current earnings of £12.26 and a £5 Amazon e-voucher!

I’m thinking we may be getting a takeaway at home for our holiday this year!

The Gallery: My Awesome Photo

When I saw this week’s theme on the Gallery, I knew I’d struggle! I love taking pictures, but they never work out how I wish they would. I don’t trawl through pictures for these posts, I always know which photos to choose, but this week I didn’t. As far as I’m concerned, any moment I feel the need to try and capture is special or I wouldn’t have bothered, it’s just a shame my skills don’t really lie in that area!

Anyway, I decided not to post up a picture straight away, then last night, I woke up in the middle of the night, and suddenly I knew which photo was my ‘awesome’ one! I’d love it to have been one with both of my children in, but I love this photo of my daughter, because it’s so natural. We were on holiday in France at the time. It was the first time we’d been abroad as a family, and this photo was taken in the playground on the campsite where we were staying. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we were just so relaxed and happy. It’s quite difficult to get natural smiles from either of our children in front of the camera, so this one was really special. A happy child is surely one of the most awesome things ever!

Check out the other ‘awesome photos’ over on Sticky Fingers blog!

 

It’s a Small World…

Well for once I’ve had a blog holiday because I’ve had an actual holiday! Yes last week, we went en famille to Disneyland Paris, and had the best time ever! It was a very welcome break from the stresses of exams at school, and the whole selling a house and relocating thing, which is taking up quite a bit of time.

We decided to take advantage of the well advertised ‘Kids Go Free’ promotion and booked our break last Christmas. It was May half term, which is also a holiday in France, so it was very busy, but it didn’t spoil our fun! We went primarily for our four year old who is obsessed with Disney Princesses and Fairies. She recently filled in her transition form for when she starts Reception in September, and in answer to the question ‘What would you like to do when you are older?’ she put ‘I would like to be a tooth fairy or marry a Prince!’

We absolutely knew that she would love every minute, but we thought our son at 2, might be a bit young. How wrong we were! He won’t actually remember the experience, but he was so happy and excited throughout our time there, pointing out the castle and more Disney characters than I thought he was aware of at any given opportunity! He really enjoyed all the shows, like Animagique, and Handy Manny, and the rides which told stories, like the Buzz Lightyear ride, Peter Pan, and our favourite of all, It’s a Small World.

As we stayed in the Hotel New York, we had tickets to both parks which were valid for the whole 4 days, and hotel guests are able to use some of the rides for an extra 2 hours each morning before it opens to the public, so we all went on Space Mountain without even having to queue. This made such a difference, and due to the price of day tickets, it actually worked out that our 4 star hotel accommodation was free. The service here was amazing, as were the breakfasts!

The highlight of our holiday though was definitely our dinner on the final night, when we booked Cafe Mickey, on the recommendation of several of my lovely friends on Twitter. The Disney characters roam around here and come over to your table, which all the children thought was amazing, an experience they will remember for years to come.

It’s definitely not a holiday to book if you’re after rest and relaxation, but it’s without doubt the best holiday we’ve ever had, and I feel like quite a pro now, so if you’re planning a visit, I’ve got a few hints and tips, so feel free to drop me a line!

And just to finish off, It’s a Small World – our favourite ride which we went on every single day, but it’s also so true. My husband and daughter were queuing up to meet Rapunzel, and got talking to the people in front of them. They were waiting for nearly 2 hours, and bit by bit, they unravelled firstly that we all lived on the South Coast, then that they both worked in the same town, then that their daughter goes to the school our daughter has a place at in September, and then ultimately, that we live in the same road, less than a minute’s walk away! What are the chances of us being in the park on the same day, let alone next to each other in a random queue?! It most definitely is a small world!