Self-catering holidays always seem to involve a lot of planning - especially with regards to what to take. Having just returned from our self-catering family trip to Coombe Mill in Cornwall here are my top ten things to remember when you're going self-catering. 1. Towels Even if all the bedding is included where you're staying it doesn't necessarily mean that towels will be. It's certainly worth checking - for both bathroom towels and a tea towel. Don't forget that you may also want to take a bath mat too. 2. Tea bags If you're a complete tea addict like me then you'll definitely ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 10 – Travelling to Cornwall
Finally the day was here - holiday time! Now, this year was our first real holiday with both children and the first proper holiday we've been away for in years, so we were pretty determined to make it memorable. Not feeling brave enough to fly with the kids again yet we instead went for a UK holiday and after seeing so many rave reviews online we opted to stay at Coombe Mill in Cornwall. If you've not heard of Coombe Mill, let me set the scene. Imagine a small farm, run by a family, where children are at the centre of the holiday. The whole site is set up so that they have an absolute ball, ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 9 – Getting ready
It's a bit strange writing all this in the past, but I'm determined to record all this summer properly, but I was also determined to enjoy our holiday without spending all my time tied to a laptop. Day nine of our summer was one of those days which in a way seems like there's no real point in recording it. It was the day before we set off on holiday so most of it involved trying to look after over excited children whilst also trying to remember everything that we needed to take away with us, buy a few last minute bits, and trying not to let the kids unpack as fast as I could ... read more
Help LMC start to fulfil her travel dreams
http://instagram.com/p/dq7bB5xIyM/?modal=true Little Miss C has a bit of an obsession with travel right now. Mr C and I went to Paris recently and she also had a rather dragged out trip to Gatwick airport to pick her daddy up after he went to The Netherlands for a wedding recently. Add to that the fact that DorkySon (who she still talks about regularly) moved to Tasmania and one of her school friends is about to emigrate to Sydney you can possibly see where her wanderlust is coming from. At Easter one of her other school friends went on a long trip to South Africa, where he has family, and ... read more
Summer 2014: Days 3 & 4 – A weekend without Daddy
It's been a bit of a funny old weekend in that most of it didn't feel like a weekend at all. Mr C's been away in the Netherlands at a wedding, and without him about it's kind of made the days merge into last week a bit, and it certainly hasn't given me the break that I so need by the end of a busy week, especially when we're in the school holidays. The first alarm went off at 2.50am on Saturday morning for Mr C to get up for a 6am flight to Amsterdam and combining that with a couple of wake-ups from Master C - who was struggling with the heat - it meant that Saturday started feeling ... read more
Planning Paris in a Day
Back in July 2003 Mr C and I celebrated my birthday for the first time as a couple and we headed off to Paris on a Eurostar train for what was then our first holiday together. Since then, before children, we travelled extensively together (at least 20 different countries and going right around the world for our honeymoon) and we loved those trips to foreign cities where we'd explore on foot, stopping for a beer or glass of wine in a bar and people watching when ever we got tired. We both really miss travelling now that we've got kids and often we'll talk about the trips that we've taken in ... read more
Featured post: Popping across the channel to France
We're lucky here in St Albans in that we live just a short 20 minute train ride away from St Pancras International station - a gateway to Europe, right in the centre of London. When I was commuting I used to have to walk past Eurostar arrivals and departures every day and became quite jealous of all the people heading off on holiday in France, back from foodie trips in Brussels, or small children home from adventures in Disneyland Paris. When you have a look at a site like Hotel Direct and realise just how cheaply you can get hotels close to Disneyland it makes me more determined than ever ... read more
Ten things to consider when booking your family summer sun holiday
Now that Easter is over and done with and the kids have gone back to school attentions are turning to summer and in particular booking summer holidays in the sunshine somewhere. We all need something in the diary to look forward to! Booking a family holiday can be a bit of a daunting thing. Where do you go? Who do you travel with? Do you book it all yourself or go with a reputable travel firm like First Choice? Everyone's talking about all inclusive holidays to Greece, but Greece is a big country so where do you start looking? What do I actually need to book and organise? I might ... read more
A record breaking holiday?
How fast can you assemble a Mr Potato Head? And what about if you were blindfolded? How long would it take you then? Unless you've got some very strange hobbies I'm guessing that the above questions have probably never troubled you before. I certainly hadn't given them a second thought before a box arrived in the post a couple of weeks ago. In it was a Mr Potato Head, a water pistol, a colouring book, stickers, coloured pencils and some sweets. Also included were some details of the Thomson Family Holidays Guinness World Records Event that I'd been invited to a Whipsnade Zoo. ... read more
Recharging the batteries
There are times that we all need a bit of down time and an opportuity to recharge our batteries and that's exactly what the C family have been doing for the last few days. A holiday with a toddler is never going to be completely relaxing, but this one had a pretty good stab at it. We booked a weekend break at Centre Parcs Sherwood Forest, somewhere that Mr C and I visited years ago before LMC was on the scene. That visit we spent our time doing things like clay pigeon shooting and 4x4 driving - things were a bit different this time, but actually just as much fun. One of the big benefits ... read more