With two children, two businesses and an embryonic smallholding, I always think that it’s important to try and get some time together as a family, so as promised in my New Year’s resolution – I did book some time away at the start of the year. We’re half-way through the year now, so I thought I’d report back and let you know how it’s going!
First off – the one that our two boys aged 8 and 6 had been begging to do for years – Legoland in Windsor. It was only a day out and we kept the costs down by taking our using Tesco Clubcard vouchers to buy the tickets and taking our own sandwiches. The boys were beside themselves with excitement – and our youngest gravely pronounced in the back of the car that he’s been waiting to do this “all his life!!” We went on a Saturday, lots of people about, but not too packed although we were told it was a “quiet” day! The boys managed to get us on the wettest ride first, but luckily it was a sunny day. We went on a lot of rides that day, and on the way home I asked what their favourite was – only to be astounded when the answer was “panning for gold” which was a completely non-techno attraction which involved water baths, sand and finding nuggets of gold! Just goes to show that sometimes simple is best!
Panning for Gold
The next pre-booked time-out was a trip to Wales for my husband’s birthday – we wanted a weekend away, somewhere different, but definitely based outdoors. We normally go camping, but we decided to have a treat and go to the Yurt Farm, near Lampeter in Wales – and what a great choice that proved to be!!
We followed the directions and arrived at an idyllic spot in the countryside. We parked our car, transported our belongings across to our Yurt by wheelbarrow and settled into our home for the weekend. The Yurts provide simple luxury based on sound eco-principles with candles and paraffin lamps for lighting and a log burner for heating. If you’ve always wanted to camp, but can’t do the whole sleeping on the ground thing then this will be ideal for you. There are only five yurts on the whole site and you literally have acres of field surrounding you – kick back, relax and enjoy!
Laurie and Thea, who run the Yurt Farm, are absolutely lovely and couldn’t do enough for us – printing out maps of places to go and just generally making sure that we had a great time. They offered to take us on a tour of their organic farm, which is next-door, and on the way back we purchased fresh vegetables and meat from their farm stall. Each yurt has it’s own private campfire area – so lamb burgers cooked over the embers were much enjoyed by everyone that night.
The facilities on site consist of solar showers (so much better than I expected), compost toilets (ditto) and a lovely area for communal cooking and eating if required – with another log burner for my pyromaniac husband to play with! The kids were straight in from the word go, disappearing off to make friends with the other children on-site and generally having a fab, outdoor time. Our youngest had pestered Daddy to bring pocket knives, so we went walking to find hazel sticks that could be whittled and transformed into thumb sticks for walking – cue hours of whittling outside the yurt and lots of wood shavings.
The inside of one of the Yurts
Come Monday, we were extremely chillaxed and very reluctant to leave – but it was time to go and so we set off back to Somerset – stopping off for a detour at a local pottery – Daniel Boyle Ceramics - on the way, as recommended by Laurie & Thea. We rounded off the treats with Fish & Chips in Lampeter and arrived back in Somerset in time for tea!
So, booking at the beginning of the year is really working for us, as it doesn’t offer the opportunity to duck out pleading that we’re too busy. We haven’t spent a lot of money, but we have gained so much in terms of family-time and reaping the benefits of down-time to return to work with a renewed vigour!
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