Putting the Fun Back into Holidays - by Dea Birkett

What are family holidays for? I thought they were to laze about in each other's company, not doing much, enjoying a new place, feeling a different climate on your skin. I like just lying on a foreign couch, one twin either side of me, breathing in an air that's warmer, thicker, stickier than at home. Often, I need no more than this. It's a rare treat to be able to idle with the kids, away from all our rigid school and work timetables. And it's incredibly good for us, in a deep family sort of way. I know it sounds corny, but we do bond more when we aren't consumed by the petty patterns of domesticity. When all we have to do is wake, eat and chat.


But increasingly I'm being told that we can't do this on a family holiday. A holiday has to be not only enjoyable, but educational. We all have to learn something. I can't tell my friends I'm going away with the kids to relax or, as my teenager says, chillax. I have to declare I'm going to improve their French, introduce them to Ancient Greece, or make them aware of the ecological issues facing African peoples. And I thought we were going away to be together, all floppy and free of daily demands.


I don't think the real problem is the holiday element. It's the parenting element. It's practically impossible to simply hang out with your kids anymore. You're expected to be Doing Something, and usually Something Meaningful. We're not allowed just to be mum or dad, we have to be our children's teacher, too. Parenting is now seen as a pedagogic mission.


And because we're told - incorrectly - that we're spending less and less time with our children, the extended time we do spend with them on holiday becomes a victim of these educational pressures. More and more family holidays are being packaged as times for learning, not lounging. I think I'm going to found my own holiday company, to cash in on this trend. I'll call it Curriculum Tours (if such a company doesn't exist already, which it probably does). Or perhaps, more accurately, Guilt Trips.


When Tony Blair listed his priorities as 'Education, education, education', I think he meant at home, not on holiday. Let's put the fun back in family holidays. There's nothing wrong with doing nothing.

Kids do in Flight Video - by Dea Birkett

I've been glued to my laptop, watching youtube. It's sad, I know, but it's also very funny. I feel like I've strapped myself in and taken off a hundred times, aiming for Malaga or Istanbul. I've been watching Thomson's new in flight safety video, to be launched on all its short and mid haul flights later this month, entirely acted by children. (www.youtube.com/ThomsonHols.) And I don't mean teenagers. I mean four and five year olds, with one sock up and the other slouched down, telling me how to fasten my seat belt, slip on my lifejacket, and pop on the oxygen mask. It's funny, original and captivating. And that's the point. Research had shown that hardly any of us bother to watch the safety video anymore. But with kids in grubby school uniform playing the part of the cabin crew, we're all eyes on the overhead screens. I think it's genius. I'm also amazed that it's been passed by authorities responsible for regulating international flights, whom I imagine are rather conservative about these things. And I'm wondering what other innovations could occur in safety videos, now Thomson has started the trend. Any ideas?

Watch the new video on YouTube

Too Close to the Sun - by Dea Birkett

It’ s late at night (isn’t that when all blogs are written?), and London is cooling down. It’s been a hot day in the city, and everyone’s been complaining about it, including me. The kids were all sweaty when they arrived back from school, in that way that kids don’t really sweat, just get damp and grumpy.

So there’s some irony that I’m also now surfing the net to find somewhere hot to go away. The Eurocamp survey (www.eurocamp.co.uk/KidsViews) I mentioned in my last blog, asking kids and their parents what they wanted from their holiday, found only one point of agreement. Good weather. That priority made it into the top three choices in every age group. My family’s no different. If a destination threatens to have a cloudy sky, we cross it off the summer holiday list. At the same time, the kids were whinging tonight that they couldn’t get to sleep because of the humidity here, at home.

I don’t think it’s because we live in the middle of a big city. I think it would be just the same if our home was a cottage in the Cotswold’s; I still think, while working, we want things to be cool. It’s only when we relax that we want the thermometer turned up. It’s as if feeling warm and chilling out go together.

But there’s hot – and there’s far too hot for the kids and me. We wanted to go to Libya, but August in that area seems to be too much of a challenge as far as the temperature is concerned. As you know, we’ve been planning a weekend in Rome for far too long, but that, too, has been put on hold, in the belief that it’s too steamy in August to wander around the Coliseum.

But last weekend, we bucked the heat trend. We stayed at The Grove hotel, dubbed ‘London’s Country Estate’ for it’s palatial grounds and extreme proximity to the M25. The Engish weather wasn’t warm. In fact, Saturday was quite fresh. But we braced the outdoor pool and quite enjoyed it. Feeling a little chilly was a new sensation. We should try it more often.

But still, as I search now for our summer break, I can’t but pursue the sun.

Family Holidays Not Just for Kids - by Dea Birkett

I’m getting fed up with ‘family’ being code for ‘kids’. First they want to spend millions on building a new museum in London for children, (see earlier blog), rather than simply making museums welcoming for all ages. Now I worry the same is about to happen to holidays. ‘Family holidays’ will really mean special times for anyone too young to vote.

At the risk of sounding like a toddler having a tantrum, I’m a member of my family just as much as my 16 year old and the seven-year-old twins! So when we decide on a family holiday, surely it should be one we’re all happy with. I know that’s a struggle, especially if, like me, you don’t have a traditional neat family with the recommended 2.4 years between each child. But you can negotiate and compromise, whatever age you are. I don’t really want to go to a hotel where the height of entertainment is a Lady Gaga disco, which is what my teenager would choose. Nor select a destination just because there’s great beach games for the twins. There has to be something for everybody.

So Eurocamp coming out with a survey telling us what kids want from their holidays is just another weapon for my teenager to wave in the brochure war. The survey’s results don’t build bridges between generations as we spin the globe deciding where we want to go. One of the 40 suggested key aspects of having a good holiday – ‘having a lie in’ – was so low on the kids’ list that it didn’t even feature in the final results. So do we adults have to get up at dawn when we’re on holiday, just like we have to most days at home, except we might hear the cry from the minaret rather than the roar from the nearby major road? Even more disheartening, ‘staying up late’ was a major attraction for the 6-9 year old survey group, which would include my twins. So we’re not even allowed to yell at them to get to bed because they’ve got school in the morning, allowing us adults a little quiet time together.

A family holiday should be just that – for all the family. Only one problem with this. ‘Spending time with the family’ came pretty low down on the kids’ list of priorities in the survey, just pipping ‘good playgrounds’. It’s interesting to learn that I’m only marginally more attractive to my kids than swings and slides.

(Eurocamp operate over 160 campsites in Europe, USA and Canada.) See Takethefamily's London page.