Tag Archives: beach

The classic British holiday…

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… or 5 really good things I did on my holidays and 5 potential deal-breakers…

1) The English country wedding
What could be more perfect than starting a holiday with a wedding? 
My cousin got married in a little stone church where everyone knew her, and had a hog roast reception at a specially converted wedding barn in the middle of nowhere (the fantastically named village of Throcking).  My son was a page boy and insisted on carrying a “Just Married” balloon down the aisle behind her, and stripped all his outfit off during the ceremony because he was too hot.  Don’t you just love toddlers? ;)
Fantastic day, lovely to see my family, great to see my cousin (who has always been the closest thing I have to a sister) so happy.
Of course, the location of the wedding limited our options for making use of our week off, so we headed east, to Suffolk…

2) Visiting Castles
Having recently joined English Heritage, my husband is determined to get his money’s worth.  We’ve visited three castles and a ruined abbey within a week.  Fortunately, my son is obsessed with castles at the moment.  At Framlingham (where Mary Tudor was declared queen), we joined the EH Time Travellers.  While a toddler is too little to take part in the mock battles and wild bear hunt,  my son was plenty big enough to paint a shield and was thrilled to get the design he asked for (“a big lion with a tail on!”)  He also ran the ramparts, thrilling for him, a little nerve fraying for me although it is all in good repair.
At Orford castle (pictured) he fell asleep in the car and spent a good 40 minutes asleep on my lap in the main hall.  Waking up there was the Best. Thing. Ever!  He then climbed to the top of the castle, and back down again, on his own little legs.  and slept soundly that night.

3) Southwold
We’ve wanted to visit Southwold for ages, but when we holidayed in Norfolk, it was just a little too much in the wrong direction.  It was worth the wait.  We stayed at the hotel Gordon Brown used on his holiday there (no, we didn’t book for that reason, we didn’t know that until we were leaving!)  My favourite moment was my toddler walking into our room and saying “Ooh! This is lubly!”
It is famous for its rows of brightly painted beach huts, its white lighthouse, the Adnams brewery and its pier, which was only recently completed and is in fact the UK’s only 21st century pier.  Southwold is truly lovely, and although it has the usual middle class beach uniform shops (Fat Face, Joules and a mini-department store stocking Crew and White Stuff) there are also an impressive number of independent stores.  There’s a tiny amber museum and a few more museums that we didn’t go to (no time!) and many happy hours can be spent mucking about on the beach (sandy) and on the pier (the modern ironic amusement arcade is fantastic although too scary for a toddler). 

4) Sutton Hoo
When we told people that we were going to Ipswich over night, most went “why???”  Some people know about the regeneration of the docks area which is really very stylish indeed, but most know it as a bit of a chav town, not really living up to its claim (with Chelmsford) of being the first Anglo-Saxon towns in Britain.
And the proximity to Sutton Hoo, the site of the most important Anglo-Saxon archaeological site in Britain, shows that this last point was an important one.  Sutton Hoo in the rain is basically a big mound of grassy earth at the end of a wheelchair-friendly but muddy path. However it has an excellent visitor centre.  We were a bit disappointed to find it was National Trust rather than English Heritage (by contrast Stonehenge is EH… go figure) so we had to pay the entrance fee but it was worth it.  There’s an excellent film, a really interesting exhibition, drawing tables for kids, a rather alarming “open grave” in the floor with a sandcast of a murdered body within in, and a replica of the longboat in which the Anglo-Saxon hoard and the helmet (here a plastic version is modelled by my husband, the original is in the British Museum in London) was found.
For anyone interested in the dark ages, or in the history of Britain – political or religious because this site is pagan burials with early Christian influences- Sutton Hoo is a must.
The best thing for me was my son’s artwork going up on the wall in the visitor’s centre.  And a slight moment of embarrassment when he told the nice curator that his name is “Baby Bear”…
     

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5) TV tie-in
And finally… for anyone without a child under 7, this picture will mean little. 
But for Cbeebies fans everywhere, this is a really famous building.  This is Jason Mason’s house in Sunny Sands from “Grandpa in my Pocket”!!!  My son knew it immediately and was thrilled.
If you want to find it, it is in Aldburgh, near the seafront. 

However, as always there are things that disappoint you.
Here’s 5…
1) customer service at reception in the Salthouse Hotel, Ipswich
An error meant that two rooms had been reserved for us.  Rather than check us in, give us the key to one and sorting out the backroom issues later, we were kept waiting a good 15 minutes with our toddler (and the after effects of my food poisoning) in the admittedly stylish reception and almost accused of having reserved two ourselves!  Given this hotel is Alastair Sawday Special Places to Stay-listed,  a sign of quality we’ve never been disappointed by, we were appalled.
Breakfast food and service, the room itself and the extremely helpful porter were excellent.  But the reception experienced tainted it.  

2) customer service at the Crown hotel’s restaurant, Southwold
We had dinner at the Crown Southwold on the first night we were there, and were impressed with the food and service.  We decided to return for our special dinner.  We couldn’t reserve, but thought arriving before 7pm would be fine.  
We got a table without difficulty, but after ordering we waited an hour for our starters (crab on toast with gazpacho, and mushroom and tarragon soup).  Neither dish takes an hour to prepare, there was no explanation, no offer of bread.  We were only grateful that our toddler had eaten beforehand and sat happily in his chair colouring Peppa Pig pictures.  When it finally did arrive, and we were asked if we were enjoying our meal we said well the food is fine but how did two bowls of soup take an hour?
The maitre d’ arrived, all explanation that the restaurant was busy, but no real apology, and certainly no offer to waive e.g. the cost of the starters. The mains arrived very speedily and he personally delivered our desserts (the strawberry pannacotta, strawberries with basil syrup, strawberry and basil sorbet and red basil was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten!), but it shouldn’t be that you have to complain to get reasonable service.  Frustrating, given the excellent service only a few days earlier.  

3) food poisoning from my only non-fish meal in days!
Chicken, perfectly roasted, must’ve had been exposed to bacteria after cooking.  Haven’t been that ill in ages. Not the Crown, in case you were wondering.

4) the behaviour of drivers on the motorway (and frankly most other roads)
You lot!  You’re mad!  As I now have access to sat nav, my attention in the passenger seat is back on the road.  When did it become acceptable not to indicate before moving?  When was it made ok not to look to the right when joining a roundabout?  Aren’t white lines in the centre of the road meant to be to the right of the car, not in the centre? Don’t you know/ care about the £80 fine for talking on your mobile when driving – its not about money-making – you’re endangering others!  Speed limits aren’t a goal or a minimum – on country lanes you need to drive appropriately for the speed of the road even if there’s a “national speed limits apply” sign.  What the HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL???!!! 

5) the M25 (and the Dartford crossing)
In Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s “Good Omens” there’s a fantastic sequence where Crowley the demon shapes the M25 into the dark sigil Odegra.  Have you been on the M25 recently?  Journeys that used to take 1.5 hours (like getting to the wedding) now require you to leave up to 3 hours in order to be sure of getting there.  The Dartford tunnel in particular is diabolical at present.  But to add insult to injury, as you crawl across the Dartford bridge, you can see where they are installing speed cameras.  Speed cameras! Our average speed over the bridge was 10 mph!  We didn’t get faster than 20mph!  And this was 3pm, not even rush hour.  Truly dreadful.
Sorting out the mess of the M25 needs to be a national level strategic transport priority.  

But a holiday’s not a holiday if you don’t have something to complain about, after all.  I hope you all enjoy yours as much.

What A-list really means…

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… or what I did on my holidays.

       

We’re just back from 5 nights away in Dorset.  Sunshine, warm enough to spend a day on the beach… this holiday had all the sort of things you want for good memories to look back on and say “do you remember when we…?”

A couple of years back, we decided that we didn’t want to fly with our tiny bundle of a son, plus we wanted to keep costs down and not have an enormous carbon footprint and investigated child-friendly hotels in the UK.  There’s a whole load of them,mostly quite expensive, so we guessed that we were not the only people thinking this way. 
Our first outing was to the Bedruthan Steps hotel, halfway between Padstow and Newquay in Cornwall, and we thought about going back there this year.  But the Bedruthan Steps was one of two hotels mentioned frequently by the Wandsworth yummy mummies that I used to meet – the other, Moonfleet Manor was more expensive and more exclusive.  Now, I’m not sure whether the Bedruthan Steps prices have increased or whether Moonfleet has become more competitive, but this year the prices were much of a muchness. And Dorset is much less of a drive than Cornwall, so Moonfleet it was.

We followed the (loathed by my husband) sat nav’s directions, stopped to read the sign at the campsite that informed us that the road the sat nav tries to send you up no longer exists and followed the alternative directions to Fleet, the road twisting and turning down towards the coast until finally, just when you don’t think it can possibly be the right way, the roofline of the manor house appears.
The plastic slide and play equipment in the field next to the main gateway (part of the excellent creche) gives away that this is not going to be just any luxury hotel break…

There’s a difference style between the Bedruthan Steps and Moonfleet – Bedruthan is 1970s purpose-built and so lends itself to very modern decor, while the original bits of Moonfleet are from the 16th century and the decor old wood and colonial-influenced.  Some people have posted on websites that it is a bit tatty, but faded grandeur is a look in itself and fits the feel of the place perfectly.  The things you want to be perfect, are – bedlinen is crisp cotton, towels soft and fluffy.   
The communal spaces have a lot of things on the walls (including a tiger skin and a polar bear’s head which my son thought was the best thing ever…), there are lots of sagging but comfy sofas, and good but old Persian rugs.

You are greeted at the door by Snoopy the spaniel – I’m not really a dog person but this one is adorable and led us through the entrance hall to the chi Lions guarding reception.  We had a nice surprise on arrival – it was a quiet week and we’d been upgraded from the cheapest room to a junior suite.  That meant my toddler could have his own room, which was good for all of us :)  

The restaurant is largely locally sourced and caters for big breakfasts with some of the nicest sausages we’ve ever had, cream teas in the afternoon, and Anglo-French evening dining.  For the kids, there is a charge for breakfast, an afternoon tea with real food (served in the Veranda room, which takes some finding), or family dining before 7.30pm (with a minimum cover charge that was way above what my toddler could manage).

There was another surprise as we went for the first of our delicious dinners that night.  
A real A-list couple amongst the fellow guests dining there. In keeping with the discreet nature of Moonfleet, my own Sensibility and the clear Sense that autograph hunting would just not be the cool thing to do, I’m not Actually going to tell you directly who they were, but let’s just say it all seemed perfectly normal and not at all Stranger Than Fiction.  Oh, ok, an actress that we all Love and her actor husband.  My husband noted that they spoke to the (predominantly but not exclusively) French staff in French – we weren’t entirely clear why…

There was another actress there too, but as she was (according to my mother in law) from Corination Street which I don’t watch I didn’t have the faintest idea who she was and she was just another mum…
And on our fourth day we were asked if we could avoid going through the lounge for a couple of hours “for the filming”.  Filming what, I asked.  “His new album’s all about Moonfleet!” I was told, but although I’d seen yet another vaguely familiar person the night before, I didn’t twig who “He” was.

But back to normality for a moment (persumably what those celebrities were there for too). 
Moonfleet has a sports centre (which we didn’t know and were therefore unprepared for in terms of tennis footwear), a lovely series of child and adult swimming pools plus a sauna, a big trampoline on the lawn and any number of things like petanque and croquet sets that can be borrowed. We had a really great time in the pool with my son – given his recurring illness early on and my husband’s busyness we’ve somewhat neglected the weekly swimming that we’d intended to do – so we were very pleased to have a few inches of water to teach him to splash and float and get a bit water confident.
 
My son adored the OFSTED-registered creche – staffed some of the time, with each child allowed two hours supervised play time and craft activities, but also open longer so parents can be there while the kids explore the huge variety of toys, costumes etc.  Stew the rabbit was also popular for cuddles.
For smaller visitors, there’s a bottle-washing service, you can borrow a fridge, nappy bucket and a steriliser, and there’s a choice of cots or beds.  You can also borrow a mesh bed side thing if you use one to stop your child rolling onto the floor, so we needn’t have taken ours.  There’s babylistening too, so you can have dinner in peace in the restaurant, or drinks on the terrace or coffee in the lounge.

Aided by the better-than-expected weather, we spent a lovely day on a secluded beach in Portland, had fun on the farm at Lulworth castle, stroked starfish at the Sealife centre (they feel a bit like a fruit pastille but you can’t beat the little girl who said “they feel like Mummy’s legs when Daddy’s off on business”!), wandered the streets and the quayside at Weymouth and played peekaboo with the gibbon family at Monkey World in Wool. 
Oh, and Moonfleet’s on the Fleet and Chesil beach. 

Lovely. Relaxing. Fantastic fun. 
Forget clubbing in Aiya Napa and spending a fortune shopping in Dubai and whatever else you see Jordan do.  It seems to lack class.
Forget hiring Necker Island from Richard Branson or a fortnight at the One and Only Le Touessrok unless you’ve made your millions and need a personal butler.  I’ll bet even the Beckhams get bored with that.

Ok so they got the dessert order a bit wrong one evening, and we felt just a little patronised one breakfast when someone who had not seen us the previous two mornings and who did not want the guests to just pick a suitable table explained to us in suitable for idiot terms that we should wait to be seated (he was better the next time we saw him). 

But the welcoming, discreet, unostentatious, calm atmosphere where the needs of small children and tired adults are dealt with warmly and efficiently, where everyone is treated as special and given their space.  Now that’s what an A-list holiday really means.