David Currie

The Summer school holidays began with an event of mixed emotions as I coaxed the ailing (flightless and quite possibly sightless) juvenile crow that had occupied our back garden for the past month or so in to a cardboard box. Whilst I was out at work, Christine and the children deposited it at the local vets. What its fate was there we don’t know. It does, however, mean that we are no longer woken early by its cries for food and that we can hang the washing out unmolested!

The fun started in earnest at the weekend when we took the children to Junior Go Ape at Itchen Valley Country Park. Emma has been angling to go for some time now. They are both old enough/tall enough to be able to go round on their own so Christine and I could watch from ground level. Unlike the adult version, you’re attached permanently to a wire from start to finish which places some limits on what you can do but means that there is no chance of them falling and there is no faffing around with clipping and unclipping the whole time. They also get to go round the two loops on offer as many times as they like in the hour slot which, in Emma and Duncan’s case, was lots!

I looked after the children for one day the next week and we took a trip down to Exbury Gardens. The gardens are probably not at their best at this time of year but I was still taken aback by quite how deserted the place was. We went round the family trail which was educational for all and then took a ride on the train. We’ll have to return again in the autumn or spring.

For the second half of the week, Christine and the children were checked in to a ‘camping pod‘ at South Downs Youth Hostel which they all seemed to enjoy, even if they did spend rather a lot of time waiting for Southern Rail.

The children were staying with Christine’s parents for the second full week of the holiday. We drove them up and met up with Christine’s brother and family at Bristol Zoo on the way there. It’s amazing how much they pack in to such a small area and it’s certainly the equal of Marwell.

Whilst away, the children enjoyed some more high altitude action with a return trip to the climbing wall at Llangorse Lake.

This post could equally have been called ‘Not the Austrian Alps’ as that was meant to be our summer holiday destination but we left things too late and somehow it ended up being too expensive or too complicated to get there. I’m not sure how we ended up on Guernsey instead though other than perhaps it is easy to get to from us with a choice of flights from Southampton or ferry from Portsmouth, Weymouth or Poole. We took the last of these which provide to be a bit of a rough crossing (Emma ensuring that we were in the majority of families that had at least one sick child).

We were staying at La Bailloterie camping which had a definite feel of end of season about it. Perhaps not surprising given the weather for the first few days we were there. We managed to dodge the showers fairly successfully though, enjoying the local beaches and visiting some of the many underground attractions when the rain became more persistent: La Vellette Underground Military Museum is full of memborilia from the German occupation but could do a better job of telling the story whereas the aquarium just looks tired. Thanks to a tip off from Christine’s brother we also enjoyed the view from Victoria Tower in St Peter Port (you get to let yourself in using a key from the nearby museum).

The weather brightened up as the week went on and we expanded our range of beaches. Originally we’d planned a visit to one of the neighbouring islands but after the ferry crossing nobody fancied it much! Instead we settled for walking across the causeway to Lihou Island.

All told, a good break and, although Guernsey has some fantastic spacious beaches, I’m not sure we’ll be rushing back there. It just seems a waste to spend 3 hours on a ferry and arrive at somewhere which is still very English (the local supermarket stocked produce from Tesco!). Time to start booking next year’s holiday in Austria…

As an early trip for Christine’s birthday, we headed up to London on Saturday. Things didn’t get off to a great start as we just missed one train and then we had to stand/sit in the aisle the whole way as the next train was parked (Saints were playing at Arsenal later in the day). The main attraction of the day was to be the London Eye. We had to queue for tickets as we were intending to use a 2 for 1 offer as a result of coming by train. It then transpired that you need to have tickets to show for both of the people. Duncan being under 5, didn’t have a train ticket but, being over 4, would have had to pay the full child’s fee. In the end the lady behind the counter took pity on use and we got our 4 for 2.

After a quick detour in to the “4D Experience” (worth a look if only at no extra cost!) we queued up again to get on to the Eye. The queue was mercifully quick and within about an hour of getting off the train we were on board. The last time I went on the London Eye was part way through my stag weekend so I was looking forward to remembering more of the experience on this occasion! Although the blue skies from earlier in the day were starting to cloud over, there were still some good views to be had and everyone enjoyed the ride.

Our second stop was the Natural History Musuem where we got to join another long queue which meant lunch was a little later than planned. As we were sat in the restaurant Duncan declared that he was going to be sick but thankfully rallied in time to eat the large bowl of ice cream, sprinkles and chocolate that arrived!

The dinosaur exhibition is usually a must but having to queue yet again and then trapse round at the same speed as everyone else took the edge of things. Duncan was starting to flag at this point so we made a quick visit to the blue whale before starting to wend our way back home. Thankfully we made it to Waterloo before the defeated Saints supporters so had a peaceful seated journey back home!