Cold Feet

Cold Feet is back! Many, many years on, with the kids more or less grown up and flown the nest (or safely ensconced in boarding school) leaving the grown-ups time to reflect and play. And have issues. And crises. Of the midlife variety, obviously.

To be honest, it's been so long that I can't remember much about the original series. I always get it muddled up with This Life. The cast all went on to great things, from Downton Abbey to The Hobbit. Apart from Helen Baxendale's terrible performance in Friends, which was a bit like the Cold Feet car crash that killed her. 

Fay Ripley has spent the past few years writing family cookery books. (Though her claim to be lactose intolerant on An Extra Slice made me wonder, does she really? Most of the recipes contain dairy.) Whatever their origin though, they are firm favourites in our house.

"I don't want any yucky carrot! Where are the chips?"

Anyway, yes, the crises. Speeding tickets. Dodgy deals. Depression. Stalkers. Young brides. Ageing. The fear of having wasted one's life. The need to be slimmer, fitter, happier, richer. All fairly textbook stuff.

Apart from the euthanasia. They just slid that one in there next week. Pete can't decide whether or not he wants a coffee after dinner at home, but had no bother picking up a pillow and smothering his mate. Thankfully, he arsed it up.

The car crash of life - Henry the Mini at Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry

So their Manchester is one of concerts and bars and canalside smooches. We may still be stuck in the messy kids bit that has happened since we last saw them and which has been conveniently left out (messy teenagers are way cooler), but it's still somehow cosy and familiar to be back in their midst.

The nearest we have got to mentioning distance of this new middle-aged Cold Feet world is a trip to Dunham Massey a few years ago. No cycling (and no cheating) for us though. It was the first day of summer, and we were en route to North Wales. It was a National Trust pitstop of a hot lunch and clean toilets and somewhere for a toddler to burn off enough energy for a nap. The rhododendrons were in bloom, and deer roamed the parkland.

There is still rain and traffic jams in Cold Feet land, which is what we were party to on a recent visit. I wrote about Manchester before, but it was from a near 25-year absence, which we rectified this summer with two trips across the Pennines. Admittedly, one was to catch a plane. But the second was to explore the region more thoroughly, staying with family in Wilmslow.

The mill maid fantasy?

There were great, vast places ending in Bank (Jodrell, Quarry). And then the centre of Manchester itself, where we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. Which is quite brilliant. And what's more, free. There are fantastically enthusiastic explainers who taught us how to make a mini microscope and did a show about famous Manchester inventions, you know, insignificant little things like the aeroplane and the Spinning Jenny. There is a whole floor of kid-friendly experiments - magnetism, mirrors, friction, levers, optical illusions. There are steam engines, jet engines, railway engines, and flight simulators. And a Sinclair C5. The cafe makes fresh pizzas and even has a healthy salad bar. It's a top day out, which left us on such a high that we didn't mind the deluge that soaked us as we made our way back to the car to head to Salford Quays.

And Salford Quays, where there are the Lowry paintings of my parents' youth (Level Crossing hung above our gas fire), and the CBeebies of my daughter's. A friendly lady behind a desk in the BBC part of Media City gave our girl a CBeebies sticker, which just about made her LIFE.

Media City, Salford Quays

I tend to see the world through Dangermouse and Old Jack's eyes.
Not Topsy and Tim's mother's.

And then we went outside and found the Blue Peter garden, which just about made mine.

Free English Heritage August Membership with British Gas

Everybody loves a freebie, and so it was like a shot that I signed up for an e-mail offer from British Gas giving away several thousand English Heritage memberships for August. The membership covered two adults and up to six children, who seemingly didn't even need to be related to you.

We are National Trust, Historic Houses and Royal Horticultural Society members, which always seemed like more than enough to keep us going. To join English Heritage as well felt excessive. Plus we've been a bit snippy about English Heritage properties in the Yorkshire region since most of them are, not to put too fine a point on it, ruins. It didn't seem worth paying to go in them since you think you've kind of seen enough just walking or driving past them. They haven't got a roof, furniture, wallpaper or windows so what could they possibly have inside?

Well, here was our chance to find out what they were hiding. Quite a lot more than we thought, to be honest. The chance to step back and enjoy a beautiful setting, for one thing. A little museum or two of salvaged artefacts. The eerie atmosphere of abandonment. The consequences of wanton destruction by Henry VIII's army. A batty sheepdog. The chance to brush up on some important history and imagine a bygone age.

We made it to:

1) Clifford's Tower.

I'd been before as one of my 40 challenges for turning 40, but given that it is down the road and it was going to be free, it would have been crazy not to go again, this time with daughter in tow. She loved climbing up the spiral staircase to the ramparts and trying to spot our house from the top. You can't actually see our house from the top, but you can see the Terry's chocolate factory tower, which was good enough for her.

2) Kirkham Priory.

This has a peaceful setting beside the River Derwent, and the slightly less peaceful York to Scarborough railway line. There were cows. Our daughter assigned us each a house amongst what was left of the buildings so that we could all play happy families. Sigh. Mummy and Daddy aren't very good at these sorts of games.

3) Rievaulx Abbey.

We have often looked down on the abbey from the National Trust owned Terrace above, but never ventured down into the valley. More fool us. The abbey is absolutely stunning, with a delightful, well presented museum. A children's trail helps you locate the monks' toilets.

4) Helmsley Castle.

Similarly, we have often looked up at Helmsley Castle from the Walled Garden, but had never been inside. It is much more substantial than the severed keep you see from the market square. It being a castle rather than a former monastic establishment, this is one of the few local ruins not destroyed by Henry VIII, but rather by the Civil War, and a bit of neglect. Walking around the mound above the moat ditch was a particular highlight. Our daughter spotted her beloved chickens in the walled garden below.

Helmsley Walled Garden

Above the moat

5) Byland Abbey.

Home of the aforementioned batty dog, who actually lives on a neighbouring farm, but spends his day hanging out at the abbey seeking out unsuspecting visitors to throw him sticks. Our daughter is terrified of dogs, so ran off screaming as soon as she saw him, but eventually came around to his persistent pestering. Good dog.

Batty sheepdog

6) Brodsworth Hall.

Not a ruin! A beautiful house and garden just outside of Doncaster that we'd always wanted to visit. Loads of activities for kids - a mini beast hunt in the garden, and a trail of giant knitted insects around the house that were to be identified as friends or foes, depending on how much damage they tend to do to building fabric. The house was kept in the same family for years and years, and they continually patched it up or just let it evolve, so it's an odd mismatch of period and repair. A beautiful wooden Victorian kitchen table with a Formica top, for example. A lift that was forever breaking down. A lot of it is currently undergoing more significant structural restoration - mainly the window shutters, and the billiard room, which had everything in tea crates. But the garden is just stunning - a fern grotto, sun room and croquet lawn amidst a formal parterre, rose dell and arboretum. And statues of whippets. The usual play area and tea room you would expect in such establishments.

As it was school holidays, and there are 31 days in August, really we could have got a lot more mileage out of this freebie. But despite best intentions, owing to various prior commitments and visitors, days and weekends ran away with us, so we didn't quite manage to get to as many places as we hoped. Notable local places we missed out on included Richmond Castle, Whitby Abbey, Scarborough Castle, Middleham Castle and the York Cold War Bunker. Further afield, I would have been tempted to revisit places like Eltham Palace and Audley End (which definitely aren't ruins), and Stonehenge. Maybe next year, we will add English Heritage membership to our list so that we can see the rest.

Richmond Castle (taken June 2016)

Eltham Palace (taken July 2015)

Child Friendly Holiday Review: Eurocamp at Bella Italia, Peschiera del Garda, Italy

Lake Garda from Peschiera

I am normally cynical about the adoption of American traditions over here. What's wrong with a turnip and a bit of apple bobbing at Halloween, for example? Who wants a truckload of Coca Cola for Christmas? Oh, sorry, I mean the Holidays? So the same applies to Black Friday. Thanksgiving isn't a thing over here, for obvious reasons, so why should we indulge in the retail frenzy that follows it? Apart from maybe getting some Christmas presents ahead of the game, it just seems an excuse for a fight over a flat screen TV in Tesco's.

Since we aren't actually on holiday, unlike our cousins in the US, Black Friday makes us feel a little resentful. And start thinking about holidays. And booking them. Cos it's November, and cold, and wet and you've finished the parkin from Bonfire Night and you don't want to eat a mince pie before December. Which I is how I ended up becoming a Black Friday victim last year. The Guardian travel webpage told me that Eurocamp were selling all their Easter to May holidays off at half price for the duration of the Black Friday weekend.

As we are now tied to going away in school holidays for the next 12 years or so, that was a bargain impossible to resist. After also scoring some miraculously affordable Easyjet flights from Gatwick, I booked us six nights at the Bella Italia campsite in Peschiera del Garda for a very reasonable £210. It was only after I had hit the "Book Now" button that I realised that the middle weekend of the school holidays (when I had booked for) wasn't actually Easter in 2016. Easter weekend was the day after schools finished at the end of March. So there was some grovelling to my husband, who had to book two extra days' leave from work immediately after a long weekend away from the office. But thankfully nobody objected and he was granted the time off.

We then had to get ourselves from York to Gatwick Airport without breaking the bank, but I managed to get train tickets the day they went on sale three months in advance, and with our Family Railcard discount, we got all three of us to Gatwick for 80 pounds return, which is less than petrol and parking would have been, and much less hassle. We would have had to stay the night at the airport either way - even though our flights weren't at anti-social times, getting to and from York in the same day would not have been possible without a very very early start and a very very late night home, things which are just not that easy to deal with when travelling with a five year old. So the fabulous Premier Inn at the North Terminal did its job - £39 for a clean and comfortable room, £50 for dinner and breakfast for three, and one little girl entertained for hours sitting on a windowsill watching planes take off and the Skytrain monorail trundling between the Terminals.

Premier Inn delights - plane spotting

Car park and Skytrain views

I also hadn't known that a general strike was planned in France for the day of our outbound travel, which meant French air traffic control workers were off too. We were really lucky because our flight was relatively unaffected - the pilot was routed over Germany and Switzerland, and we were only about 15 minutes late taking off. Unfortunately we spent those 15 minutes standing on a cramped gangway between the departure lounge and the plane because the Easyjet crew (not to be confused with Rastamouse) decided to start boarding before the aircraft was ready. The delay was actually due to the stewards being tardy for their shift. They also had to give the aircraft an extra clean as there was a passenger with a severe nut allergy on the flight. But Gatwick was a stressful place to be that morning, as numerous flights to France and Spain were cancelled or severely delayed.

We chose Bella Italia as we had been to Peschiera del Garda before, staying at Camping Butterfly, a small site the other side of town. Bella Italia is the only site open so early in the season, but like Butterfly it is in walking distance of the town centre, which then gives access to trains, boats and buses and relieves you from the necessity (and expense) of hiring a car. We booked a taxi transfer online through Peschiera Transfer, which did what it said on the tin - picked us up at Verona airport, provided a booster seat for our daughter, and delivered us to the campsite (and back again) for 108 Euros return. We were at Bella Italia in time for tea, and the sun was shining. Coming from a city that had spent most of winter under water, it was a welcome sight.

First views of the lake

Because we had paid half-price, we had splashed out on the superior model of caravan for our stay. The Eurocamp Avants were only a year old, and still had that "new car" smell about them. They were much larger than any mobile home we have previously stayed in with Eurocamp, and really were very nice and comfortable, with a king size bed and a leather settee. They even had a dishwasher. Although we were asked not to use the dishwasher at the same time as the air conditioning, as this would trip the power supply, which hadn't been upgraded in line with the caravan. The weather was so pleasant that we really were only inside the caravan to sleep, so all this luxury was a little wasted on us. There was a big deck outside to lounge about on, even if the couriers had been lax about cleaning off the bird poo splattered on the furniture. The big deck also meant that there is now much less space for parking cars next to the Avants - indeed on some pitches it would be impossible. Not an issue for us, as we were pedestrians, but it's something to bear in mind.

The Avant

Free cat with every caravan

The couriers were the typical bunch of jobbing students that you get on most Eurocamp sites. We had been exceptionally lucky with our courier in Holland the past two years. He was doing it for a career rather than a season, and made a huge effort to provide excellent customer service and a lot of information to his guests. The couriers in Italy had only just arrived and were only really there to service the units - I wouldn't have trusted some of them to fix anything that broke or to recommend much about the area. As we had been before (and I have a friend who lives locally) we didn't need any tips - in fact, the couriers were asking us for advice. But they were always polite, if a bit clueless.

The campsite is huge - by the far the biggest we have thus far stayed on. I imagine in the height of summer it could get unbearable - with heat, dust, crowds, noise and mosquitoes. But in early April, it was ideal, as all the facilities (apart from some of the pools) were open for business, but there was no pressure on space. There were always sunloungers free by the pools, and tables in the restaurants. There was a decent supermarket on site, which was more expensive but not exorbitant, and because we hadn't paid to hire a car, we accepted its premium without complaint. 

Turning blue

The pools were freezing, but this didn't stop our daughter from wanting to swim every day. I had to hoik her out when her skin turned the same colour as the water, but she seemed to suffer no ill effects from these mild doses of hypothermia. There were a few play areas dotted around the campsite, some of which charged a small entrance fee - eg for trampolines, water dodgems or inflatables. Some were only open late afternoon/ early evening.

There are at least three restaurants on the campsite, plus bars and a gelateria. We ate several times at the restaurant overlooking the lake. It was fairly reasonable for a plate of pizza or pasta, and the waiters got to know us during the week so were always friendly. There was always a table on the terrace available - in the summer, you would no doubt have to book in advance. The restaurant also allowed us a spot of terrible parenting as it had a kiddies corner with TV, which meant that our daughter could happily watch Frozen or Brave or How To Train Your Dragon while we sat and drank wine and had a conversation while we waited for our food. This was a real and rare treat - date nights are few and far between for us in York.

Quality time, quality wine

The kids club (free of charge, run by the campsite) also gave us a couple of hours to ourselves most days. Our daughter was really keen to go so she could meet other kids (the issue of having an only child) and show some independence. Ofsted may have had a field day with the sessions, given that they took no child's info or any contact details for parents, but the animatori were very sweet and we knew we could trust our daughter to stick around until we went to collect her. The same couldn't be said for some of the younger boys, who tended to bolt off without anyone noticing. The kids did face painting and craft activities, played games, and one day made costumes and practised for a fashion show, which we then had to stay up late after the evening mini disco to watch. The mini disco was hilarious after a few glasses of Lugana - I still have the songs spinning round my head. "Il cielo e azzuro e l'energia di un estate da ricordare...Tanz mit mir, dance with me, Be-e-e-e-e-ella Italia, Bella, bella, Italia..." Click on the link and you won't thank me. Europop at its finest.

Catwalk Binbag Chic

Princess Fairy Crafting

We were deliberately lazy on this visit, having been to Peschiera before, at a time when our daughter was still in a pushchair so could be strapped in and made to go places without an argument. This time it was harder to persuade her of the merits of Bardolino (the place, not the wine) over a campsite bouncy castle. But go to Bardolino we did. (By bribing her with the promise of the campsite bouncy castle when we got back.) Otherwise we just pottered about on the campsite (counting lizards) or on the beach by the lake (counting fish), and went into Peschiera a couple of times.

Bardolino

Peschiera Walls

However, if you have time and children with inclination, below are the local must-sees:

Easier with a threenager?

1) Any of the lakeside towns. Peschiera is pleasant, but it's worth taking a boat trip to at least one other - we have been to Desenzano, Lazise, Sirmione and Bardolino. They are all a bit samey, but equally charming. There is always a promenade to stroll along, then a cafe by the promenade from where you can watch people strolling along. The lake is often really hazy, so you can't see very far across the water. Each town usually has a small castle, a harbour, a pebbly beach and a decent play park. Bardolino and Peschiera have landtrains to give you a quick child-friendly tour. Without a car it's harder to get to the towns further afield like Limone and Malcesine - the boat trips to get to them are long, and the (quicker) coach services only run from June. Annoyingly, on the return leg of our day trip to Bardolino, the ticket inspector on the boat claimed we had an invalid ticket. Despite having a ticket from Bardolino to Peschiera and being on a boat from Bardolino to Peschiera, he claimed we had not paid enough money as the boat was going via Sirmione, which is a longer route. We had no intention of getting off at Sirmione and there wasn't a direct service from Bardolino to Peschiera for ages and our daughter had started moaning, but this apparently shouldn't have been a problem. The ensuing argument with the ticket inspector was good for my Italian, but not my pocket, as we had to pay a penalty fare. 

Sirmione

Lazise

Bardolino

Desenzano

Bardolino land train tour

2) Verona. It's about 20km away, a very quick train journey, although the trains permitting the cheapest fares are few and far between and it's quite a trek from Verona station into the city centre. There are buses, but we didn't manage to find any - the station area was surrounded by roadworks when we visited in 2013. We didn't find that much in Verona that was child friendly for that three year old in a pushchair other than ice cream and another land train tour, but an older kid that might have heard of the Romans and Shakespeare will probably appreciate the magnificent Arena, and seeing Juliet's balcony at the (alleged) House of the Capulets. Verona is a lovely, lovely city, however, and a must if you have never been.

Juliet's Balcony

Piazza Bra

Arena

3) Venice. Not a day trip we could face with a young child, but it's only 70-90 minutes to get there by train, which isn't necessarily so near yet so far in the right frame of mind. Venice station is right on the Grand Canal, from where you can take the Number 1 vaporetto (waterbus) service through the Rialto and on to St Mark's Square.

4) Gardaland/Aqualand/Movieland. Not for us either (and thankfully closed for most of our most recent visit), but if you don't suffer from terminal vertigo and motion sickness and are into the whole theme park thing then it's probably worth spending a lot of money to hurtle round on rollercoasters for a day with your teenage children.

5) Valeggio and Borghetto. Valeggio is a short bus journey from Peschiera. It's a pretty town lined with tortellini shops and also has the botanical gardens of the Parco Sigurta, which are beautiful. Down the hill and across the river is the medieval village of Borghetto, which has bridges, waterwheels and excellent restaurants serving the aforementioned tortellini and much more besides.

Borghetto

Borghetto Restaurants

View of Borghetto from the Parco Sigurta

Parco Sigurta

Valeggio tortellini

Our time in Peschiera did us the power of good. It felt like the first proper holiday we have had since our daughter was born, as we had some time to relax by ourselves too. We were helped by lovely weather throughout our stay, and just that laid-back Italian lifestyle.

Needless to say, I will be abandoning my principles and checking Eurocamp's website on Black Friday this year. Just in case.