Snowflakes or Snowfakes? - by Dea Birkett

It was snowing outside Brown Thomas's in Grafton Street. It was snowing on the four-piece string quartet, busking Bach and Brahms before the entrance to the distinguished department store. It was snowing on the little boy in a stripey bobble hat, bouncing and strapped in his buggy. It was snowing on the toddler girl, dancing to the string quartet in her puffy jacket, so puffy that she could barely swing her arms.

This snow wasn’t general all over Ireland. And it wasn’t real. Above Brown Thomas’s sign I spotted the wind machines, pumping out the paper flakes. And I noted it was precisely 3pm. In Grafton Street, in the heart of Dublin, it only snowed on the hour. And every hour. Well, every shopping hour at least.

This snow was very odd, slightly irritating the skin, like little bits of scratchy white litter. But the dancing girl liked it, and so did my eight-year-old twins, as they tried to blow it back into the air with one big breath and gather the fallen pieces into their pockets.

I’ve written before about fake climates, like Lapland in Kent. How we love to go somewhere cold when it’s hot outside, and hot when it’s cold. (Read my 'Cold Comfot' blog) But that’s not the point I’m making here. The point is, of all the things we did in Dublin last weekend, that moment is the one the twins remember. They haven’t mentioned the Jungle Madness zone at the new(ish) children’s activity centre ENRG, nor Dublin Zoo (although they love zoos), nor even the funky Dublin City Gallery with the fab cafe. But they’ve told all their friends about the false flakes outside Brown Thomas’s.

And it’s been like that on most of our holidays. There’s been a moment, often a very small moment like this one, which they take home with them. So are we misguided to try and make our family holidays special? Kids don’t want to experience big sights or huge new adventures. They want something small that tickles their imagination – a magic moment. The problem is, you can’t plan for that.

For guaranteed snow, (in the UK), this festive season, head for Lapland UK in Kent, or the dazzling free Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park, or even one of the many snow dome, outdoor snow tubing or ice skating events across the country.

Journey - by Dea Birkett

Sometimes you stumble across something that makes you gasp, 'Why hasn’t that been done before!' But not often. This has been one of those rare, lucky weeks. The gasp is called Journey Journal, and it addresses one of those sticky issues this website has discussed: Is it right to take the kids off school to go on holiday?

I believe the simple answer is ‘No’. But then, nothing’s simple. There are all sorts of reasons – including cost – why we might want to transform term time into travel time. But the real argument for flouting end of term dates is that your kids are likely to learn more on the road than they are at their desks. Travel is always a good lesson – perhaps not in something on the National Curriculum, but definitely in life.

That’s where the Journey Journal steps in. Produced by small independent publisher Can of Worms, it transforms a term-time trip into a teaching session. Can of Worms publisher Toby Steed, with two young children himself, noticed that if a child is off school long term sick, for example, they’re expected to do some studying at home. But if they’re away from the classroom on holiday, nothing is expected on their return.

The Journey Journal, designed by geography teachers, is for parents and schools to hand out to these holidaying shirkers. Tasks it sets include ‘Drawing a typical (not traditional) local female’, ‘Complete this graph to record the weather (ie rainfall and temperature) during your journey’, and ‘Draw something that is okay in this place but rude in your place.’ Toby suggests filling in the Journal could be a condition of a school letting a pupil have time off to travel. I imagine some kids, when asked to draw a graph, might prefer to stay at home. But the Journal’s fun. It’s also very small, so can fit into anyone’s pocket. I’ll put it in mine when we next bunk off.

Journey Journals available from www.geographycollective.co.uk and CanofWormsEnterprises.

Related Takethefamily articles include:

Florence with Young Kids
Horrible Histories in Mexico
On Holiday with the National Curriculum
A Mother’s & Teacher’s View
Learning Holidays

Related Takethefamily blogposts include:

Returning Again and Again
Speaking in family friendly tongues
Putting the Fun Back into Holidays

Returning Again and Again - by Dea Birkett

I’m past the point of no return. Because I keep coming back again, and again, and again to this corner of Ireland – an island just off the Mayo coast. We’ve been coming here for years, ever since my first child was born, even though it’s always windy, always wet, and rarely warm.

I’ve often asked myself why we come on holiday to the same place several times, rather than go to different places each time. The world is so huge, it’s a pity to not explore each and every corner of it. But there’s something comforting in going on a family holiday to somewhere you know well, and even to people who may recognize you again. ‘Welcome back,’ are two wonderful words to hear, so more than a merely polite and obligatory, ‘Welcome’. It makes you feel as if your own home isn’t the only place that you belong.

So we’re back again, on Achill Island, enjoying collecting stones and seaweed on the fierce blowy beach and buying fresh hens from the man who keeps a wooden coop in his front garden. Although it’s not really a garden, more a patch of bog. Nothing much grows here above a few feet, because of the wind blowing off the ocean.

A friend scolded me for always bouncing back to this remote spot. ‘Why don’t you take the kids somewhere they can discover something new?’ she said. But they do, here on Achill. This time, we’ve gone hunting for black shells (mussels), picking them off the rocks at low tide. We’ve counted more than a dozen dolphins (or are they porpoise?) dancing in the surf. We’ve seen seals. Just because we come back to the same place, doesn’t mean we have the same experience. Every time is different.

My kids are lucky to have traveled all over the world. But it’s going back, not forward, that they enjoy most. I’ve had to stop asking them where they want to go on holiday, for fear that we’ll never make a new journey again. I know they’d always say, ‘Achill!’