I love walking, but my youngest most definitely does not. We live in a beautiful, rural area with National Trust woods and farmland just behind our house but he’s not keen on going for a walk, even with our lovely dog. So when the two of us were invited to spend a few days in […]
Meet & greet airport parking
I flew from Heathrow Terminal 5 recently and was offered the chance to try meet and greet parking there, which was great. Following instructions which had been mailed to me, I drove into the short stay car park via the Fast Track lane and parked near the lifts in a designated bay. I then handed my car […]
Driving on ice in Madesimo, Italy
This is Omar, an amazing driver who showed me how to enjoy driving on ice. That’s quite an achievement because I’d had two car accidents on black ice in the year prior to meeting him, and so was very nervous about this experience. Ice-driving When we first arrived at the Madesimo track and saw the car speeding around, […]
Top 5 family trips
Since we got back from our half-term trip to Turkey, Bella and I have been thinking about where we’d like to go next year. Here’s a round-up of five new family trips we like the sound of. (I’d love to go on any of them. Bella fancies Sri Lanka). Mountain Kingdoms www.mountainkingdoms.com is offering a […]
National Trust family working holidays
My husband had a wonderful time yesterday afternoon outside clearing up leaves and attacking shrubs with the hedge trimmer. At Easter we were guests on a National Trust family working holiday to Stackpole in Pembrokeshire which I wrote about for The Independent. The youngest loved the day our group spent chopping down shrubs in the woods […]
The best flight ever
We went to the Dionysos estate in Turkey with Exclusive Escapes for the October half term holiday. I’m writing about the trip in print, but wanted to write here about how we got there because it was my best experience of air travel since my first plane journey 25 years ago. When I heard that […]
Things to do in Malaga with kids
We loved our day in Malaga this summer. The eldest was not keen on our parking spot, by the bullring, but we distracted her from what happened in the bullring and walked through the old part of town to the Picasso museum. The artist was born in the city, although he never returned after the […]
Birling Gap, East Sussex
Birling Gap is one of my favourite places. It’s between Brighton and Eastbourne, but is unspoilt and beautiful, and owned by the National Trust. It’s part of the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs and has seen some perfect days out throughout my life, the most recent being with my Mum and kids a couple of weeks […]
Designed to Win exhibition at London’s Design Museum
Everyone in our house loved the Olympics and is looking forward to the paralympics next week. We watched the Olympics on TV but were lucky enough to get some tickets for the paralympic athletics. The youngest (9) and I have been enjoying Jon Snow’s Paralympic Show http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jon-snows-paralympic-show every day on Channel 4. When we saw […]
V&A exhibition – Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary
This exhibition runs until September 30th as part of a season of events celebrating British design, and my daughter Bella and I went along to see it at the weekend. Although London’s V&A Museum is free, there is a charge for the exhibition: it cost £10 for the two of us. The tickets are timed, […]
