The Utlimate family day out with a teenager - by Dea Birkett

You might not even know if from this blog, but I have a teenager. And the reason you don’t know it is because she doesn’t like going with me anywhere, anywhere at all. So when I’m writing about my family’s travels, it’s usually about the nine-year-old twins. Teenager rarely gets a mention.

But I’ve found a trip  - well, an outing really – that we can both enjoy. It only lasts a day, so the chance of developing a full blown fight and not speaking to each other for the rest of the week is lessened. And there’s no overnight involved. If she comes with us to a hotel, the first argument is always about which bed she gets. As a family of five, we usually have two rooms – one for the kids, one for the adults. But the teenager insists she’s too old to sleep with her siblings, demanding our room with its big double bed. I do wish hotels could figure out some clever bit of design that took into account families these days can have quite big age gap between their children, often due to a second relationship. There must be some way in which ‘family-friendly’ could take this modern family into account, and not presume we’ve all got two kids with just 18 months between them.

But back to going out for the day with the teenager. We’re going to the Clothes Show. It’s been in Birmingham and now it’s coming to London next month. As well as loads of fashion and cosmetic displays, there are catwalk shows and appearances by famous people in the fashion world. We went last year, and it’s a great day Mother and Daughter day out. It’s also good for the generational balance; my daughter was the knowledgeable one, as I’d never heard of half the brands of designer make-up we could try out or the names of celebrities who were giving expert advice. She knew them all.

But this year I might have the upper hand. This year’s show will recreate Carnaby Street to celebrate the iconic street’s 50th anniversary. I bet she doesn’t know anything about that. Not that I want to have a fight….

Clothes Show London 25-27 June

Train your dragon by Dea Birkett

My nine-year-old twins love Cressida Cowell. We’ve read the book and seen the film. We’re completely fired up by How to Train Your Dragon.

In a recent interview, the author said she was inspired to write by spending summer holidays as a child on a small, uninhabited Scottish island where there was nothing to do. So instead of kids clubs, water slides, soft play areas, rooms with play consoles and activities, activities, activities, she spent her holidays ‘drawing and making up stories’.

Like the Cowell family, we go on regular holidays to a small island, not off Scotland, but off County Mayo, Ireland. But we stash the car with so many of our urban belongings that now we have to take a trailer, to accommodate everything we think we might need. We always go by ferry – we abandoned flying some time ago, having discovered if we book a cabin on the crossing from Holyhead to Dublin, we get a couple of hours kip on the ship and are all prepped up for the six hour drive the other side.

But we haven’t discovered how to divest ourselves of all our worldly goods. It’s curious how it’s far easier to abandon them when going somewhere hot. We don’t mind if there’s nothing for the kids to do on a tropical island resort except splash about on the beach. But if the temperature isn’t dragon’s breath, we feel we need to take loads and loads of stuff to keep the kids amused.

But inspired by the Cowells, we’re going to pack lightly this trip. No more essential toys, essential games, essential bits of electronic kit. (Although persuading the man to leave behind his laptop and iPhone won’t be possible.) We’ll take paper and pencils, to draw or write with. I’ll report the results back to you. Fingers crossed, one of us will pen a bestseller.


Irish Ferries has regular sailings from Holyhead to Dublin

Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon, is published by Hodder Children’s Books.

The film How to Train Your Dragon is on general release.

Ashy Skies: When Holidays Never End - by Dea Birkett

I was listening to the radio today - while trying to find matching socks in the laundry basket - when a woman who was stranded in Spain due to ‘ash in air’ was interviewed. ‘I always said I hoped our holiday would never end. Now I’ve changed my mind,’ she said.

The most interesting aspect of the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland is how it’s exposed our attitudes towards going away. In theory, being stuck on a beach in Thailand or a hotel in Manhattan for a week longer than expected isn’t a hardship. But when it actually happens, it’s far from appealing. However much we might like to imagine we want to spend all our lives spread out on a sun lounger with no To Do list, that isn’t our dream life at all. For many holidaymakers, and particularly those with kids, each extra enforced day living the dream has felt like a nightmare.

The whole point about holidays is that they don’t last forever; they’re different from the everyday. However much a cosy hotel may advertise it’s a ‘home away from home’, we only want to stay there because it’s nothing like where we live. Even if we seek familiar food for our kids when we’re away, preferring to stay at accommodation that has a full English on the menu, we go there because at least the weather is different to our own back garden. We eat our fried eggs in the sun.

And however much we imagine we want to throw off all routine, we only want to do that for a fortnight. If holidaying became our ordinary life, we’d want to escape it. I sometimes long for the six-week summer school break to end and to return to the comfort of knowing we all have to go to bed and get up at a certain time. Regularity – and alarm clocks – are good for the soul.

So I’m going to appreciate our next family holiday a little more. I won’t spend the last few days wishing we could stay longer. I’ll just be glad for the break, and even gladder to be going home.

A Suitable Age? - by Dea Birkett

We’ve just been to one of the best plays we’ve seen for a long, long time. I know it’s theatre, not travel. But as it’s called The London Eye Mystery and is about a young teenager disappearing on the giant wheel that turns on the south bank of the Thames and gives the best ever view of London, I feel I can mention it here. The eight-year-old twins particularly enjoyed it, intrigued and terrified in turns. There was only one hitch. The recommended age for the play was ten plus. Only their big teenage sister should have been sitting in the audience.

This set me thinking about recommended ages for travel experiences. Many tour companies now offer holidays for children with a certain number of years. Even family safaris often have an over-eight requirement. Taking your three-year-old on a Nile Cruise would generally be frowned upon. But the twins loved The London Eye Mystery, even though they were theoretically two years too young. So should we pay any attention to well-intended age restrictions on travel?

I think it’s fine as long as it’s only advice. I don’t think it’s fine if holiday companies start telling us that a toddler is too young to look at a Velazquez painting in the Prado. Or that my teenager is too old to hook a duck in the Tivoli fairground, when (she’ll murder me for letting you know this) she still shrieks when she wins a tacky prize.

We know our kids better than any holiday company. So I think it’s up to us to decide whether a break is suitable for them, whatever their age.

And some of us are younger at heart than we might first appear. The Unicorn is a children’s theatre, and The London Eye Mystery a play for young people. But I really, really enjoyed it. Far more than anything I’ve seen lately aimed at the age range I’m supposed to be – adult.

The London Eye Mystery is running at the Unicorn Theatre until 18 April www.unicorntheatre.com.

Takethefamily.com have an exclusive offer for their twitter followers with special priced tickets for 7pm shows of The London Eye Mystery. See Takethefamily's Twitter page for more details twitter.com/Takethefamily 

Tickets for the real London Eye from www.londoneye.com

Finding Espana, in Spain - by Dea Birkett

‘Let’s go to Spain!’ said my teenager. It was a good idea, and we all agreed, including the eight-year-old twins.

The trouble was, we were already there, in the heart of Murcia, less that half a kilometre from the Mediterranean coast, where palm trees dot the landscape and paella is the classic dish.

But where we were staying, it didn’t feel like Spain at all. We were in La Manga, a resort three times the size of Monaco. And it was a kingdom unto itself. Within the resort, we could have been anywhere. Sure, there were tapas bars and open air tennis courts, but there was also a traditional Irish sports bar with giant plasma screen. If we wanted to see Espana, we had to escape to it.

There was a wonderful beyond. Just a 15-minute drive away stood Cartagena, a small town with huge style and an almost complete Roman amphitheatre. We wandered up and down the terrace of stone seats and climbed on to the stage, becoming Roman players ourselves. My man gave us some lines from Shakespeare – ‘Frailty, thy name is woman’ – the only lines he knows. He shouted them into the damp, warm Spanish air. We imagined how it might have been when Augustus was Emperor and held sway in this area, commanding performances. Then we drove back to the resort, the car barrier lifted that shut off all entry roads, and we were in the world we knew.

Familiarity and foreignness were combined in one trip. How fabulous. But a bit of me didn’t want to be that comfortable, even in the evenings. I wanted my presumptions and concerns to be unsettled. If I go away, even on a family holiday, I want to see the world from a slightly different angle. Standing on the steps at the Roman Theatre, I did so. Back in the resort, I felt as cosy as could be.

I suppose every holiday doesn’t have to be an adventure. Does it?

See Takethefamily's pages Hotel La Manga Club Principe Felipe, Hyatt Las Lomas Apartments, La Manga, and Spain. For more information visit www.lamangaclub.com Best guide on Murcia is Dorling Kindersley’s Top Ten Costa Blanca from Amazon

Do we really hate kids in Britain? - by Dea Birkett

Do we really hate kids in Britain?

Our first Children’s Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley Green believes so. About to leave office, he’s determined to go with a bang not a whimper. Sir Al has declared England ‘one of the most child-unfriendly places in the world’, citing Norway, Canada and Australia among other countries where families will feel far more welcome.

If we’re to believe Sir Al, we’d only ever book for Thailand, not Taunton. The cliché is that Thais, Italians, Spanish, Greeks all love their children – or at least other peoples’ children – far better than we do. How often have you heard someone describe the joys of a little café in an Italian square, where the waiter whips away their two-year-old, taking them into the kitchen to play with the sous chef? A few times? And how often has anyone mentioned a Cornish café to you, in particular how welcoming they were of your screaming, irritable toddler? Not often, I bet.

Cliches often contain a grain of truth, but only a grain. I don’t believe Britain is the child-shunning place it once was. (There’s plenty of examples on Takethefamily's website to prove so.) A high chair is no longer a rare piece of furniture in a restaurant. (Try asking for one in Greece.) An extra pull-down bed in your hotel room won't cost at least £20. (Although, sadly, in some places it might still cost £10.) Hotels increasingly have meals and mealtimes that cater to many generations, not just one. And at least we haven’t gone the way of the States, where there’s rampant age apartheid, with menus and museums reserved for kids only.

Travelling up and down the country with my small tribe, I've been increasingly and pleasantly surprised at how family-friendly Britain has become. So why don't we stop whining and give Britain a break?

Slaves to Schedule? - by Dea Birkett

Routine, routine, routine. When you first have a baby, that’s all the advice everyone gives you. You must get them into a routine.

Discussions around routine have been big in the news recently. Childrearing guru Gina Ford, who recommends parenting works best when we strictly observe the clock, is at loggerheads with, among others, a new father named Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats. Clegg has spoken out against the strictures of the author of The Contented Little Baby Book, saying instinct is as good as instruction.

I agree. As a family that travels much of the time, we have to throw routine to the European, African or Asian wind. It’s wonderful. And it definitely doesn’t damage the kids. In fact, it does the opposite. Without a routine imposed from above, kids develop their own rhythms. This sets them up far better for life than any timetables and ridiculous rules they are forced to adopt but don’t understand.

My lack of any regularity began with my first born, who first went abroad at ten days. Slipping between time zones, I had no idea whether she’d had her afternoon nap. I barely knew when afternoon was, and she certainly didn’t. It worked out so much better for all of us. She could sleep when she was tired – a rather simple idea that seems to have escaped Gina Ford. And we weren’t in fear of missing the Prada in Madrid because the Sunday opening hours would coincide with the time she was supposed to sleep.

Yet many friends of mine with small children plan their holidays around the ridiculous mantra of routine. They have to leave to drive to Cornwall at the strangest of hours, to keep in with their toddler’s ‘sleep routine’. They have to take a short haul flight in the late afternoon to make sure their four year old doesn’t miss his ‘daily afternoon snack’. Then, once they arrive, the joys, surprises and unexpectedness of a new place are all squashed by trying to squeeze their kids’ routine into a very differently shaped day, with different hours of light and darkness, different customary mealtimes, different bedtimes expected of children to those at home. But their kids have been so regimentally brought up, they find it impossible to adapt. They still have to have their biggest meal at supper in Spain, even though everyone else has a giant lunch. And though petit Jean and Francoise seem to stay up later than their British counterparts, my British friends still tuck up their kids early when they’re in Paris. Then they moan that they’re imprisoned in their hotel room for the night, when they could be enjoying an evening out with their children.

So don’t drill a routine into your kids. Take them travelling instead, and let them feel the different rhythms of the world. We can’t be slave to schedules.

Now, is it bedtime yet?

Our Love of the Wet Weekend - by Dea Birkett

The instinct when it’s cold and wet outside is to stay inside, to hunker down. That’s the image of the Happy Family, sitting closely together around the flickering fire.

But very few of us have fires anymore, and huddling around the radiator somehow doesn’t have the same ring. So when it’s wet and windy, we don’t stay in, we go out. And we usually go to the wettest, windiest place we can find, which is usually the British seaside.

Last weekend it was Brighton. In the summer, the pier is most unpleasant. You can’t move for bags of hot doughnuts attached to human arms, walking along the creaking planks. But it winter, there’s no queue for this sugary treat. There’s no queue for the Hook a Duck. And a cup of tea in a polystyrene cup in the cutting wind tastes like the best drink you could ever have. My twins are big tea drinkers – have been since they were tiny. I think it’s part of the whole seaside experience.

We ate at Regency Restaurant and stayed at the Hilton Metropole (www.hilton.co.uk) for the sea view. The water’s never blue this time of year, just a solid wall of silver. But we could still spot surfers, immune to the weather like we wanted to be.

At the risk of sounding like Grumpy Old Woman when I’m still in respectable mid-youth with young children, I think we’ve all become a bit wimpish about breaks. In the winter, weekend break has come to mean Madrid, not Margate. But there’s nothing wrong with the South Coast on a cold day. In fact, we prefer it.

See related article: A Rainy Seaside Family Break to Brighton

Travels with Family Films - by Dea Birkett

It hasn’t been Christmas cards but holiday brochures that have been dropping through my front door by the dozen this week. I confess to plopping every one straight into the recycling. Does anyone really read these huge tomes of tiny pictures and complicated graphs of how to calculate the cost of your fortnight in the sun? I don’t. My kids certainly don’t. And, increasingly, they’re having a louder and louder say in where we go away.

Their influences aren’t glossy brochures but TV, books and, in particular, films. We’ve just seen Disney’s latest slick offering – The Princess and the Frog. The film was fine, but the setting was fab. All the love action happens in New Orleans, with very wicked Voodoo-practicing shamans and flighty Southern belles. Now the eight-year-old twins just want to pack their bags and head for Bourbon Street, hoping to meet a member of the Royal Family disguised as a small green amphibian. And I want to go there, too. Not to meet a Princess, but because I still carry the film’s soundtrack of trad jazz in my head, warming me up along the cold streets.

It was the same when we saw Pixar’s Up!. We all wanted to jump on a long haul flight to Venezuela, and search out Angel Falls that the film so dramatically featured. I hope this film-led holiday choice doesn’t apply to everything we see. On Boxing Day, we’re off to watch Where the Wild Things Are. I wonder where that will take us.

Dressed for (catching) Dinner - by Dea Birkett

The weather is foul – all wet and windy – so it’s time to spend a day outdoors, fishing. We’ll get wet, cold and even a little bit whiney. But there’s something about being out in a bluster that clears all those Christmassy cobwebs away. It makes me tingle.

The other thing it makes us do is dress up. There’s nothing like a bit of costume to make it feel and look like an adventure. (After all, how did the pith helmet become so emblematic of the Tropics? Or plus-fours the signal that someone was going to strike out across a Scottish hillside?)

Our latest costume adventure was to go fishing in Ireland, in a lake on the estate of the K Club, a country house hotel in County Kildare. It wasn’t that rural – only a 20 minute drive from Dublin – but it felt and looked like countryside in that damp, paint-box green Irish way. Just a short drive from the Book of Kells, the dress code was completely different to in the city. Our gillie Albert turned up in green corduroy trousers tucked into tall Wellingtons, a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, a flat tweed cap and a camouflage waistcoat with so many pockets stuffed with so many lures and flies, he looked like a piece of bait himself. Albert instructed the eight-year-old twins to pull off their Gap sweatshirts and trainers, and kitted them out in waxed Barbour jackets, quilted blue waistcoats and miniature long green wellies, ready to wade through the bullrushes.

Albert taught them how to spin a line and pull it in quick enough to hook a trout. But they weren’t gazing in the lake to spot ripples from the fish, but to admire their own reflections. How fine they looked in their country gear.

Both the twins reeled in a catch; neither of us adults did. But they weren’t boasting about the one that didn’t get away at supper that night. They were remembering their waistcoats and jackets, and the way they could wade so deep in wellies that came over their knees.

The K Club www.kclub.com, County Kildare, Ireland.
We travelled there on Irish Ferries www.Irishferries.co.uk

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!’

How Long is Too Long for a Family Holiday? - by Dea Birkett

How long is too long for a family holiday? I know Takethefamily.com's slogan is 'For family holidays that last a lifetime', but that's probably a little long for any of us. We all used to aim for a fortnight break in the summer, and hoped it might be topped up by the odd weekend away during the rest of the chilly year. If we were very fortunate, we’d slip out of town for a whole week at half term. But that was the pattern of our breaks – two weeks, one week or a weekend. Nine or eleven days just wasn’t the shape a holiday took.

But now, tour companies claim we’re demanding our breaks in all sorts of odd sizes. Thomson and First Choice say they’ve been surprised by the demand for ten and 11 day holidays, so have increased them by almost a quarter. I don’t think there are many other companies that are as flexible, without becoming bespoke.

I’m really glad Thomson is doing this, as we’ve always battled with the obligatory fortnight. It’s not that we don’t enjoy going on holiday, it’s just that two weeks seems an awful long time and one week not enough. We like ten days. I calculate that’s a day either end to settle in - discover the best bit of the beach buffet and the cheapest local cafe to purchase lunch - then a full week to actually ‘be there’. Perhaps it’s just my fidgety kids, but if the settled down middle bit extends to longer than seven days, they start to get bored. Instead of being a short, sweet adventure, the holiday itself becomes routine.

Our other ideal break length is a weekend. It’s surprising how refreshing just a couple of days away from home can be. So ten or two nights is our favoured formula. Just a pity more companies can’t offer us that.

First Class for Families - at Economy Rate - by Dea Birkett

My family is getting used to first class. We check ourselves in to the exclusive airport lounge, ready to relax before our flight, as if we were Beckhams, not Birketts.

That’s because more and more places are selling upgrades to facilities formerly reserved for the rich. Now if you’re going on a Virgin Holiday from Gatwick, even cattle class, you can saunter into The V Room lounge, flop back in an uber-chic chair (usually bright orange) and order your free drink. And, remarkably, although I travel with the three kids, I can enjoy my brush with premium treatment in peace. The teenager saunters off into the V Room’s ‘tech zone’, to play video games. The eight-year-old twins hang out in the play area and consume our entry fee in packets of crisps alone - £10 per child, £17 per adult. I think that works out far cheaper than buying endless takeaway coffees and sandwiches in the airport’s Pret A Manger. And as there are no shops nearby, I also save money on the bribes I usually have to hand out to keep them busy in the tiny Hamleys or Harrods while waiting for our boarding gate to be announced. (Find out more about V ROOM.)

Now being accustomed to first class perks, last time we crossed the Irish Sea we naturally upgraded ourselves. Going from Holyhead to Dublin City port on Irish Ferries, we paid £14 per head to use the Club lounge, so I could catch up on the newspapers while nibbling on a cheese board and supping red wine, and the kids could have unlimited drinks, snacks, and, unfortunately, cakes. (www.irishferries.com)

I suspect there are many more such deals on land, sea and air. Can you let me know about them? It would be great to compile an upgrades list, where families can experience first class for economy fares. We all like a little bit of luxury.

Things to do on Roald Dahl Day - by Dea Birkett

Every year we celebrate Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Guy Fawkes and … Roald Dahl day on 13^th September. The kids are Dahl fans, and so am I.

I thought you might like to know the five things we devotedly do:

1. Cook squiggly spaghetti, as instructed in The Twits. Then the kids cry out, ‘Look! My spaghetti is moving!’ pointing to the imaginary worms before gobbling it all much more eagerly than any other tea. There’s even a new edition of our standard family cookbook just come out - Roald Dahl's Completely Revolting Recipes: A Collection of Delumptious Favourites – so we can concoct more inedible dishes. You can eat some of these in the café at the Roald Dahl Museum.

2. Learn a new poem from Dirty Beasts. As I was having my first baby, my partner sat beside me and read out, ‘No animal is half as vile, as Crocky-Wock, the crocodile…’ while I pushed. screamed and blasphemed. I found it comforting. Perhaps that’s why my first born, now a teenager, still finds the sound of, ‘The meat I am about to chew, Is neither steak nor chops. IT'S YOU,’ strangely soothing.

3. Have a home movie night, including popcorn and normally forbidden fizzy drinks, while watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

4. Promise to catch the Everything You Wanted to Know About Roald Dahl roadshow when it comes by us, and think up some especially fiendish questions.

5. Pretend to be Bruce Bogtrotter, and eat far too much chocolate cake.

We’re looking forward to next September.

Speaking in family friendly tongues - by Dea Birkett

It seems to me that some foreign languages are more family friendly than others. I don’t mean in their sentiment, but in their ability to be picked up easily by anyone, of any age. I’ve been convinced of this because I’m writing from Aruba, where the language is Papiamento – the most family friendly tongue I’ve come across.

I’d never heard of Aruba, and definitely not of the island’s mother tongue, until now. We were brought here by First Choice, one of the very few British holiday companies who serve this small island in the Caribbean, only 20 miles off the coast of Venezuela. Aruba has strong ties with Holland, so the official language is Dutch. But nearly everyone speaks Papiamento at home, a bouillabaisse of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and English, which is said as it’s written and in which even a shopping list sounds like a poem. Unlike French or Spanish, there's no gender words to struggle with. And to emphasis something, you just say it twice. Poco poco is slow; blauw blauw is completely blue. It’s the only language in which my kids have been able to pick up several phrases in just a few days. Very good, for example, is Hopi bon. Imagine what fun the eight-year-old twins have saying that, over and over and over again.

I’m delighted. I make a huge thing about my kids doing their Thankyous (Masha danki) in the language of the place we’re on holiday. I know it sometimes makes me look foolish, as usually the shopkeeper or waiter or guide speak right back to us in flawless English. But I have this idea that it’s somehow more respectful to master a few foreign words. Usually with my kids that’s a real struggle. Like me, they’re not natural linguists. But with Papiamento, its rhythm makes them want to say Good Morning (Bon dia) and Goodbye (Ayo) with far more courtesy and frequency than they would at home. I never thought of a language as an attraction – something to consider when deciding what destination to chose for a family holiday – but now I think it could be. And my teenager paid Papiamento the ultimate compliment. She’s put it as her status on Facebook.

Teenager at the Edinburgh Fringe - by Dea Birkett

Teenagers are so tricksy. There’s plenty of events and activities for kids, and more for grown ups. But ‘kids’ is usually defined as up to 12 years old. And grown ups from 18 onwards, although, as a mother of a 16 year old, that does seem rather optimistic. So what happens to all the 13 to 17 year olds who fall into the chasm between youth and maturity? What are they supposed to do on holiday?

We’ve just faced this at the Edinburgh festivals. There’s some fantastic shows for kids, Lighter Than Air by Circo Ridiculoso particularly recommended (www.circoriduculoso.com). But try suggesting to my 16 year old that she’d enjoy Giraffes Can’t Dance because of the puppets, and she snorts in a way only a teenager can. But when I offer to take her to shows that I’d enjoy, like a political play about the Middle East, she starts getting sniffy all over again, as if she had a permanent head cold. Why would she want to go to that adult rubbish?

I say Thank God we stayed at the Smart City Hostel, where each night similarly nasally challenged teenagers gathered around the pool table in the basement bar, avoiding their parents. ‘Thank God,’ snorted my teenager on spotting the pack. ‘Teenagers! Normal people.’

And my initial worries that she’d spend all day in her bunk bed listening to obscene songs on her iPod while I toured the festival’s cultural highlights was just maternal fretting. The Fringe turned out to be fabulous for a 16 year old, just because there’s so much on offer they’re bound to find something to suit their very particular tastes. My teenager loved The Assassination of Paris Hilton, played entirely in the ladies toilets in the Assembly Rooms and using language she’s unfortunately very familiar with. She’s been wearing her ‘I Killed Paris’ t-shirt with pride ever since.

There’s also plenty of dance, and I’ve found that teenagers enjoy most things with lots of movement in them. At least mine swayed to Me Mobile/Evolution. Once you get over the pretentious title (this is the Edinburgh Fringe, after all), it’s a wonderful piece where a young woman called Claire Cunningham dances on and with her crutches – hundreds of them. She even does Singing in the Rain, replacing Gene Kelly’s twirling umbrella with a spinning crutch.

As far as multi-generational short breaks go, I don’t think there’s much to beat the Fringe. We even took granny.

Cold Comfort - by Dea Birkett

Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how we were in pursuit of the sun. Well, now we've found it, the kids have turned all chilly on me. Now they're insisting the next place we go to isn't only cool - in every sense of the word - but absolutely freezing.

When I wrote before, I said that holidays had to be hot. I've already changed my mind. I now believe that they can be either hot or cold, but nothing in between. The Grove hotel, with a summertime sandy beach in the middle of Hertfordshire, complete with deck chairs and ice cream cart, found this out long ago. Not only do they have an artificial beach in August, in December they guaranteed a white Christmas, Narnia style, with the reception covered in a blanket of fake flakes.

My kids love it there. But why do they insist on blowing hot or cold? I think it's to do with dressing up. They like - as we all do - to wear different clothes when we're on holiday. And the best excuse for doing so is because it's far fresher or far warmer than at home.

Clothes, of course, maketh the man, woman and child. I know my strappy summer dresses come out the moment we leave Britain behind for sunnier regions. Away, I wear outrageous outfits I'd never normally wear. I feel like a different woman. And I presume the kids feel different, too. At least they dress very differently. My teenager doesn't pack a single hoodie in her suitcase, although she wouldn't be seen dead without one on in the streets around her own house. Of course, I think she looks far lovelier in her holiday attire.

So hot or cold - skimpy or salupettes - anything but jeans and T-shirt weather will suit us.

Girls will be Boys - on holiday, by Dea Birkett

We spent the weekend doing the Dangerous Book for Boys trail in a forest on Trentham estate, in Staffordshire near Stoke-on-Trent, with...... a girl! Well, a boy as well. The eight-year-old twins are a mixed bunch; one male, one female. I've always regarded their rearing as a social experiment on the 'Nature or Nurture?' debate. If I called my boy River 'pretty' and my girl Savanna 'handsome', would it make a difference? Or is feminine hard-wired, made up with sugar and spice from birth? And masculine determined by tetesterone?

Holidays, however, have never presented the same opportunities for me to become an amateur professor of gender studies. We go away, we usually go swimming, we all do about the same sorts of things. I've noticed that, if horse riding happens to be on offer, it's usually Savanna who takes it up the most enthusiastically. What is it with small girls and ponies?

So an experience modelled on the Dangerous Book for Boys, which no self-respecting eight-year-old girl would be seen turning a single page of, presented a great opportunity for me to continue my studies on holiday, not just at home. Our forest leader Christian Fox was like a Ray Mears for kids, with camoflauge pants and a very, very soft voice, encouraging us to commune with nature. First, he showed us how to build a shelter, to protect us from the wind and rain. 'And the bears?' asked Savanna. 'No, no bears in Staffordshire,' said Christian gently. Savanna was clearly disappointed. River was relieved.

River sent Savanna off to gather the sticks to build the shelter's skeleton, displaying no desire to delve any deeper into the wood. When she returned with big bundles, it was River who measured them up against each other, to see if they were the correct length, before sending Savanna back out to gather dried grass for the roof. I seemed to vaguely remember, from my Geography GCSE, that women were the gatherers in primitive societies and - perhaps - on Dangerous Book for Boys weekends.

Once our twig and grass wigwam was built, we had to strike up a fire to keep us warm. This involved some imagination. It was a very hot summer afternoon in Staffordshire, and none of us were chilly. Christian provided the flint and warned us sternly, 'Don't try this at home.' Savanna took hold of the flat stone like a born cavewoman, lighting the dried birch bark on the first go.

We found North by checking the moss on the tree trunks, picked nettles without stinging ourselves to cook for supper later, and learnt how to wield an axe. Or rather, Savanna did. By that time, River was exhausted and sat down in the entrance of the shelter, staring calmly at the rustling trees.

A weekend for boys has convinced me that there's no such thing. I'm signing Savanna up for a football break next.

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.

Boring is Dea-Best - by Dea Birkett

'I'm really, really bored,' said eight-year-old Savanna a few days ago. We were sitting in a holiday cottage where we've stayed more times than I can count. The cottage is on Achill Island, off the coast of Ireland, which we have visited, in Savanna's word, 'hundreds of times'. She was delighted. 'It's great,' she said. 'There' ab-sol-ute-ly nothing to do.'

'So you want to go home?' I asked her. She was adamant. 'No. It's really, really great being bored.'

I'd never really thought about it before, but some of our best family holidays are very, very boring. It's not that we don't do anything on them. It's that there's nothing we have to do. On Achill, there's no cinema or cultural activities of any kind. There's just outside - fields, beach, cliffs - to be clambered over, if the weather's good enough. It's completely different to our regular city family life, where even the eight-year-old twins have a calendar to mark all their appointments. Recorder club, going to tea, Brownies, school fete. No point keeping a diary on Achill. Wouldn't be anything in it.

Perhaps it's also something to do with being on an island. Some years ago, the tourist office on Norfolk Island, off the coast of Australia, dreamt up a slogan to attract visitors to its sleepy shores. The posters read - 'Norfolk Island. The Most Boring Place in the World!' Visitors numbers increased substantially. The BBC, not believing Norfolk's claim, canvassed people to see where they found most boring. Interestingly, most named places which they kept going back to.

The truth is, we all like being bored on holiday, because we're increasingly entertained at home. We want to get up late, slouch around, wonder what on earth we're going to do today. Of course, for my teenager being bored is a badge of honour. It's obligatory for someone her age. I know when she gets home she'll boast to her mates about just how boring both the place, and her parents, are.

So when we're looking for somewhere to go away, and the kids say, 'That looks so boring,' I'll save a link to the page. Nothing like having nothing to do.