David Currie

This final instalment is mostly taken up with our actual summer holiday. Taking a holiday in Britain at the end of August can sometimes be testing the definition of summer and, as we set off for Pembrokeshire, we were heading in to gale force winds. To be fair, this kept the roads fairly empty and, when we arrived at Broad Haven, meant there were some impressive waves breaking against the sea wall. We were staying in a ‘lodge’ at the same place we’d stayed six years earlier when Duncan would have been about 9 months old.

By the following day, the wind had died down enough that Christine and the children could test out their new wetsuits body boarding in the sea. Unfortunately the rain returned before too long and we had to test out the selection of board games in the lodge. Things weren’t much better the following day and we tested out the swimming pool in Haverfordwest before taking a trip to St David’s for a look round the cathedral.

The sun finally made itself felt after that and we spent two pleasant days at the beach. Duncan has thankfully learnt not to eat sand in the intervening years! On another day we visited the privately owned Pembroke Castle which was a trip down memory lane for me having been there during a junior school trip to Tenby. We fell in on a guided tour where there was a good selection of gruesome stories to entertain the children. It was also, slightly randomly, circus skills day, and the children greatly enjoyed the Punch and Judy show.

We also revisited Martin’s Haven where the martins are still in residence in the toilets! We debated a trip to Skomer Island but it was too late in the year to see puffins. Instead we just wandered the cliff top path, looking down on the seals and their newborn pups below.

As with our last trip to Pembrokeshire, it was followed by a drive up to north Wales. In an unfortunate reoccurrence, Emma was once again car sick on that journey. We stayed a couple of nights in Caernarfon to be close to Christine’s cousin and extended family who were staying on Anglesey. We took the children for a walk round Llyn Idwal which was unfortunately shrouded in damp mist. Christine and her cousin did a run/walk up to the Glyders and such was the visibility that they managed to descend on the wrong side of Tryfan!

In contrast, we had glorious sunshine for the following day’s visit to Newborough Sands, scene of the British Orienteering Champs in 1995. While the others set off along the beach to the island (at least it’s an island at high tides) I had a run round the 10K+ Commonwealth Trail Champs route which is signposted.

We relocated to Bryn Gwynant Youth Hostel for the next couple of nights but met up with Cath and family again at Pen-y-Pass for an assault on Snowdon. Thankfully, unlike our last trip along the Miner’s Track, no running buggies or baby carriers were required and this time the children made it all the way to the summit of Snowdon. Unfortunately the cloud never lifted as forecast and it was pretty miserable on top, not helped by the café being closed and Emma was heartbroken that she wouldn’t be able to spend any money in the shop! We descended back down the tourist track in to Llanberis for the traditional refuelling at Pete’s Eats.

Christine had a grant interview in Swindon on the Thursday so we departed Wales and spent a night in the rather grand YHA Wilderhope Manor on Wenlock Edge. The stay was even more grand for the fact that our ‘en-suite room’ turned out to be the bridal suite! The mere presence of a bridal suite is a good indication of why we have never been able to book a room here at the weekend when orienteering in Shropshire.

Whilst Christine attended her interview, we amused ourselves at the nearby STEAM Museum of the Great Western Railway. It was billed as being an excellent way to pass a few hours and so it proved to be. There were a relatively small number of locomotives on display but this meant there was plenty of space to stand back and appreciate them. There were also lots of diversion for the children which meant that I could actually read some of the material on display. I hadn’t appreciated the extent to which Swindon owed its existence, or at least size, to the presence of the railway.

That brought us back home but, with Christine working a weekend open day at the University, I still had some child-minding to do and we decided to tick one more item of the children’s bucket list for the summer: a return trip to Paultons Park. The answer I posed at the end of my last blog post on this subject was 5 years, although Emma has managed a trip there with school in the interim. The children’s tastes have certainly matured and we only had one ride in Peppa Pig World (although this was possibly my worst with Duncan attempting to spin our cabin as fast as he could!). Thankfully the queues are somewhat shorter in other parts of the park, including the new rides in the Lost Kingdom. Emma demurred at some of the rides but this only spurred Duncan on and sadly he was the one who still needs to be accompanied by an adult on many of them! In the end, Emma caved in and joined us on everything. The only ride we didn’t do (although Duncan was definitely eyeing it up) was the Edge.

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…