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.

Rick Stein's Long Weekend

Zoo Station, where Rick Stein's long weekend began

Two programmes recently featured Berlin - Rick Stein's Long Weekend, and Travel Man's 48 Hours. Both featured quirky hotels, cold weather, art communes and a Trabant tour. The latter was the intended comedy element - there was much bleeping of profanities during these pre-watershed broadcasts. The cars, being made of Bakelite, are hardly robust and weren't easy to drive in their heyday, let alone after ageing the 25 years since the fall of the Wall and now having to manoeuvre through the 2016 Berlin traffic.

Both Rick Stein and Travel Man also featured the same restaurant - Billy Wagner's Nobelhart & Schmutzig, which is on Friedrichsstrasse just south of Checkpoint Charlie. It's the only time I've seen Richard Ayoade impressed by food. He normally has a nibble, sneers, and leaves. But this time he cleaned his plate and gave a thumbs up, speechless. So it must be good. Rick Stein was more effusely enthusiastic, as Billy Wagner did clever things with fennel seed, pork neck, leeks, kale puree, toasted pine needles and Rick's personal favourite - smoked eel. Billy Wagner is - well, if not a bit scary, then certainly intense. He cooks in front of you, hiding behind a Viking beard and a fierce stare. His food is locally sourced to the exclusion of anything else. Not even a lemon will grace his kitchen, because citrus fruits don't grow in Berlin.

Berlin is the home of Currywurst, which I didn't know, although I have eaten it there, from a snack kiosk in Park Sanssouci in Potsdam, because it's all I could afford. As you can tell, the two times I went to Berlin, I had limited gastronomic knowledge and not much money.

Beautiful Potsdam - and I ate Currywurst

Nonetheless, certain things I ate on those trips have stayed in my mind. Berlin is the city where I tried falafel for the first time. Falafel, now readily available in Waitrose, were entirely unknown to me in 1993. I have eaten them since in more authentic cities like Amman or Cairo, but it was Berlin where I had my first taste. I thought them a little strange, but didn't dislike them. Nowadays I love them and even make my own, they have become such a staple in my diet. I ate them last night, for example, as a return to cultured sanity in Leeds after taking my daughter to see Disney On Ice.

Amman

Unfortunately translated accompaniments to falafel in Jordan

I also remember eating a chicken and cashew nut salad in a small bistro just round the corner from Barbarossastrasse in Schoeneberg, the sort of place that had checked tablecloths, candles burning in Chianti bottles, and devoted regulars. It was the salad dressing that was such a revelation to me. Germans are well known for dousing their salads in vinegar, but this was a raspberry vinegar, not too sharp, not too sweet, just enough to make the dish amazing, and unforgettable. Sadly, the bistro seemed to have vanished when I returned to Berlin six years later, but as a friend had taken me there and my geography was hazy, it might have been I was just looking in the wrong place. I hope so.

Rick Stein showed how funky the Berlin food scene has become since I was last there, a ridiculous 17 years ago. And yet he was still very much able to find the traditional grub - the gigantic pork knuckles, cheese spaetzli, meatballs, sauerkraut, all washed down with litres of wonderful beer in bars full of oom-pah music and dirndl skirts. But in many establishments, the dishes have been made more delicate and refined, which has to be no bad thing. In fact someone just won Masterchef by doing just this - taking traditional British food and - in her words - elevating it to a new level.

Traditional German grub at the Leeds Christmas Market

Europe - Them Or Us

Where we saw Nick Robinson, captured in Lego

The other day, we encountered Nick Robinson and a film crew trying to find a handbag shop at St Pancras station. We were killing time between trains from Gatwick Airport and onwards to York, and he provided a welcome distraction for my shopaholic daughter, who had already set her eyes on some bamboo socks that cost £4.95 a pair.

The reason for Robinson's handbag shop search became clear during the second part of his documentary series, Europe - Them Or Us. He needed something to introduce Mrs Thatcher trying to get her money back from the Common Market.

The programme was interesting because I learned that around the time I was born, Mrs Thatcher was ardently pro Europe, and the Labour Party were very much against it. How times subsequently changed.

Robinson gave a fairly balanced view and patiently worked his way through Maastricht, Black Tuesday, the Euro, and Blair's bid to be President. It certainly provided a useful historical background.

However, this terrifying referendum on June 23rd, caused by Cameron's own fear that the Tories would lose seats in Parliament to UKIP, will be decided by ignorance. The people that need to find out the facts won't have been watching Robinson's documentary. The sort of people who stand in the street and say "What did Europe ever do for us?" The people who think that Nigel Farage with his pint and booze and racist opinions is a great bloke. The people who think this referendum is about Syria and the refugee crisis and throwing out immigrants. The people who still think Britain has an Empire. The people who have no idea what the Tory Party might to do our country and workers' rights if they are given a free rein to act as they please. The people who think that the country will suddenly be billions of pounds richer if we no longer have to give the EU money, and that a Tory government will give all that money to them. The people sat on their sofas moaning that Bulgarians are taking their jobs while being too lazy to go out and get their own.

I am not saying that the EU doesn't have its faults, nor that these aren't turbulent times. But as far as I am concerned, I am European. I speak four European languages. I went to university in Germany. I love travelling. I want to be free to visit, live, study and work in and be part of places like this:

Heidelberg

and this:

Delft

and this:

Girona

and this

Porto

and this:

Desenzano

 and this:

Lake Bled

And these are just the places on water.

The ignorance of voters I fear is summed up for me by two individuals. The first is a man interviewed by Channel 4 News. He was a farmer, in receipt of EU subsidies. He owned a haulage company, whose vehicles were supplied and serviced by Renault in France. And yet he was campaigning to leave, adamant that his finances and his business would not be affected. The second is Scarlett Moffat of Gogglebox fame, who represents the "undecided" camp. She was watching the news when Boris "decided" he would side with the Brexit campaign. Moffat said she thought that Boris Johnson is trustworthy. Now, what exactly about Boris is trustworthy, I ask? But she said that if Boris is telling people to leave, then it must be for a good reason. And not at all because he thinks it will get him an easy ticket to become Prime Minister.

I am genuinely frightened by what Daily Mail and Sun readers and UKIP voters and Johnson & Gove could do to our country on June 23rd. So please, if you care about small things like travelling on holiday without needing a visa or being able to get free emergency healthcare if you become ill in another EU country, or big things like your rights to maternity and paternity leave and equal pay, the need for Europe-wide collaboration on security, trading at competitive prices, or just the fact that there is a mechanism in place to protect us from some of the worst of Tory rule, then don't let it happen. The divorce would be messy, and we would be the suffering children caught in the acrimony.

But thank you, Nick Robinson, for an interesting programme, even if the right people won't have watched it.

I still ended up having to buy those bloody socks though.

Shakespeare Live

Borrowed from another William, Bill Bryson

The clue was in the title. What we expected - and wanted - was an evening of Shakespeare live from the RSC. Since we don't get to go out much any more. Since York's theatre has been closed for the past year (and hardly ever does Shakespeare when it is open).

What we got was largely a load of dumbed down dross. To mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death (or his 452nd birthday, depending on whether you are a glass half full or half empty kind of person), the folk at Stratford had staged a celebration of his work - or rather, a celebration of the influence of his work. This meant that the Bard's actual words were for the most part pushed aside by musicals, opera, ballet, comedy sketches and hip-hop.

A garden near to Stratford-on-Avon in the style of Anne Hathaway

Mnah. I suppose it was well-intentioned. Joseph Fiennes showed us some nice footage of Anne Hathaway's cottage and garden through the seasons in a sort of Alan Titchmarsh meets Monty Don kind of way. But did most of the people watching at home really need a Horrible Histories sketch to explain who Shakespeare was? This wasn't a child-friendly production. (We saw Judi Dench snogging Al Murray dressed as a donkey, for starters.)

For most of the two hours, they stuck to the funny stuff, just throwing in some tragedies towards the end. Even the excerpt from Henry V was the only scene in the whole play with a joke. They only let that famous speech from Hamlet happen after it had been mocked by Tim Minchin, Benedict Cumberbatch and, er, Prince Charles. Who had almost as many lines as Cumberbatch. That was another marker of the evening - the good, gritty stuff was too brief. Like Lady Macbeth's candle. They could have given Benedict more to do. He wasn't even allowed to play the character whose name he almost shares. It seems crazy that a botched song from Kiss Me Kate was allowed to go on for what felt like hours when soliloquays from King Lear or Richard II flashed by in an instant.

And then there was David Tennant and Catherine Tate, transported from the TARDIS to be the Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood of the evening, doing the links. When will people learn that nobody can read an autocue? It's what makes award ceremonies so excruciating, the news sound weird, and George W Bush sound like a moron. (And he didn't need much help.)

Juliet's Balcony (allegedly), Verona

Tennant and Tate both proved at other times during the evening that they can act. Unlike the terrible couple picked to perform the balcony scene from Romeo And Juliet, a play which got far more attention than it deserved. There were other great performances - David Suchet, Roger Allam, Anne-Marie Duff, Ian McKellan and Antony Sher did not disappoint. At the end, Helen Mirren as Prospero smirked at the audience and stole the show.

Some of the better things were on video. Songs sung by Alison Moyet and Ian Bostridge. (Not together, obviously.) And Simon Russell Beale. Oh, Simon Russell Beale. Don't ever dumb Shakespeare down; just make Simon Russell Beale do it. He'll make sure you understand it. He'll make you LOVE it. For Simon Russell Beale is never anything short of incredible. I am so lucky to have seen him in numerous productions (Shakespeare and non-Shakespeare) at the National Theatre when I lived in London - from Life of Galileo to Hamlet to Candide. He was amazing in every single one. So much so that I once saw him on the Tube and nearly said something. But I was scared I would start gushing uncontrollably, and the poor guy was just trying to get to work. And you don't talk to people on the Tube, EVER.

I have seen the RSC do many wonderful things over the years - at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle (£3 for a student stand-by seat in the gods), the Barbican in London, and most recently Henry VI Part 3 in a temporary theatre in Stratford known as "The Rusty Shed". (The Swan was being rebuilt.) But the person who introduced me to Shakespeare died recently, and so it was him I remembered on Saturday night. He was the Head of English at my school and put on a Shakespeare play every year. He too had been in the RSC, though we always joked that it was playing third tree to Judi Dench's Lady Macbeth. Which is possibly why he always tended to cast himself in the lead role. To be fair he was the only male available - it was an all girls' school, with a token three boys in the Sixth Form, none of whom could act. Generally our productions were like some mass Shakespeare's Globe gender reversal. But this teacher knew his stuff. Thanks to a bout of flu taking me out of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the only play I was ever in was Macbeth ("Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends!"). I had four lines and was then murdered, where I then had to lie dead on stage while Macduff and Macbeth did battle (with real swords) above my head. But I was also in the chorus and got to see the workings of the entire production and learn it by heart. And while we may not have given the best performance of the text ever ("Within this three mile may you see it coming; I say, a moving groove" said one of my friends earnestly as Birnam wood approached Dunsinane), I still think his interpretation of it was second to none. As they say, nobody ever forgets a good teacher. Dr Peter Cochran, RIP.

A moving groove

Victoria Wood

Two soups

I was shocked and - frankly - pretty devastated to hear of the death of Victoria Wood, well before her time. Cancer stole her from us at the age of only 62. Which is so utterly unfair. There are no words at a moment like this, especially as she was the one with all the good lines. Lines that made you laugh and made you cry in equal measure. I find it hard to accept that there will be no more, that her work is now complete. For her words made the everyday hilarious, the mundane massive and brought the things you had never noticed to the fore. The hostess trolley, the avocado. The Woman's Weekly, the Berni Inn. Judith Chalmers. Soup. Since Victoria Wood incorporated them into songs or sketches they have brought a snigger or knowing smile to our lips. But now they carry a bittersweet memory too.

I remember watching this stand-up show with my mum once and Mum laughed until she weed. Watching it again post-childbirth, I can see why. And not just because I am now that woman at the bus stop trying to exercise her pelvic floor. For I have had the poo-coloured wardrobe phase. I have been the new mother trying to get out of the house with toast in her hair. Victoria Wood was saying all these things before all the Mummy bloggers out there now. Back then it was so original and refreshing to hear someone tell it like it is.

Remembering my mum laughing like that makes me sad. My mum died of cancer at a similar age to Victoria Wood, and with similar speed. But given she used to drive between schools giggling to tapes of Victoria Wood she is lucky she didn't bump herself off in a car crash much earlier.

About ten years ago I managed to get two last-minute tickets to see Acorn Antiques: The Musical in the West End. As the tickets were in the stalls, it was the most money I have ever spent on going to the theatre. But it was totally worth it. Julie Walters as Mrs Overall was - as ever - astounding. And as the curtain lifted on the shop scene at the start of the second half, it's the first time I have seen a set alone get a cheer and round of spontaneous applause. Someone else played Miss Berta - Wood only appeared (as Mrs Overall) for some matinees, when Walters (according to Wood) was at Bingo.

The last thing of Victoria Wood's I saw (apart from her winning cakes on Comic Relief Bake-Off) was That Day We Sang, which I blogged about here. The quote at the top "I have a bit of life still owing" has an entirely different resonance now.

Victoria Wood was a true genius. Clever in such a down-to-earth way. She was witty and northern, shy and modest, awkward yet exuberant. And we all - probably without exception - loved her.

So farewell. And at least we will always have Barry and Freda:

..on me lower portions

Beat me on the bottom with the...

Bend me over backwards on me...

Five Star Babies: Inside The Portland Hospital

There's nothing more guaranteed to fill you with love for the NHS than seeing a private hospital on television.

Is that not what you'd expect? Do you think it would be better to spend thousands of pounds on your healthcare?

Well, in the case of childbirth, after seeing this programme on the UK's only private maternity hospital, the Portland in London, I think not. Childbirth is childbirth. There are only two routes out, and neither can be put on a long waiting list or severely delayed. There are only so many ways to kit out a delivery room or operating theatre. And the programme stressed that at the actual birth, there was no difference between the NHS and the Portland in terms of care received or procedures followed. In other words, you get told to "push into your bottom" either way. And nobody knows what that means.

But it rapidly became clear that all of the Portland's patients have more money than sense.

So what do you get for shelling out £10,000-40,000 on birthing your baby at the Portland? Champagne, for one thing. Foie gras. Lobster. Pretty much all the things you've been banned from eating and drinking for nine months. Oh, and an exquisite afternoon tea. Except that the rich new mummies are so obsessed with regaining their figure immediately after delivery that they all stick to fruit platters and grapefruit juice.

You can also purchase some exclusive baby mementos. Silver or bronze statuettes of your baby's feet. Everyone gets a gift bag containing a cuddly panda and who knows what else. (More champagne, presumably.) Puts that annoying Bounty Lady to shame - she's only trying to flog you a blurry photo before she hands over your child benefit forms and free sample of Johnson's.

What you do get at the Portland is Pat. Portland Pat will stay up all night in the nursery, looking after nine bawling babies while their mummies have a pedicure and get some sleep. Pat is a wonder. She has all the down-to-earthedness of a good NHS nurse, and she is a slightly incongruous figure amongst all these hormonal celebrities and moneyed chavs. "I never get a man in here who doesn't love Breaking Bad," she coos over fluffy pink baby Skyler.

Every woman gets her own personally selected consultant who follows her throughout her pregnancy, and through the birth. Which possibly explains why the Portland has such a high rate of Caesarians (50%) - these consultants, one of whom is a Countess married to the Earl of Bradford, don't like having their Easter lunches in Shropshire interrupted to go and have to deliver a baby naturally. They prefer it all scheduled to fit neatly into their day. We also see a consultant quick to intervene in a natural birth that had been progressing well. After one and a half hours of pushing the baby hadn't moved much, so after a swift attempt at Ventouse, she cuts the yoga teacher mummy open and whips said baby out. Consultants must naturally feel the urge to do something to earn their money - they are only called in when there is a crisis in an NHS birth, so they are not used to letting normal deliveries happen.

I would say that for that money there should be less strapping people to monitors and more birthing pools, more massages and more midwives offering soothing encouragement. For what do the midwives get to do at the Portland if everything is consultant led? A lot of cleaning, by the looks of it. And a lot of waiting on spoilt pampered women unwilling to do anything for themselves.

The worst of which is of course Hui, a Chinese "It Girl" fashion designer that I have never heard of. Her husband runs some sort of empire in Hong Kong, and generally seems so absent that she isn't even sure if he should be at the birth. (Her mum is at the hospital too and Hui is only allowed to take one person with her to theatre.) Hui is of course, too posh - or too scared - to push. Because having a baby has got to hurt, apparently. Whereas recovering from major abdominal surgery is of course entirely pain-free, right? Just ask my friend with the morphine allergy who had to recover from a C-section on paracetamol. Hui seems genuinely shocked when her consultant informs her that a Caesarian carries risk of organ damage and infection. Yes, even in this exclusive hospital. No amount of money will win that war on bacteria.

Hui's surgery goes well. However, Hui doesn't want to hold her baby until he has been thoroughly cleaned and had a nappy put on him. No skin to skin here. When he starts crying, she sends him off to the hospital nursery for Pat to look after. And from then on out she pretty much gets anyone else in the room to hold him other than her. It is of course difficult to move after a Caesarian, but any one of those fifty midwives would gladly hand her the baby if she was struggling. Once back home she has a nanny, who is apparently there to cook, clean, look after the baby and look after Hui. What Hui is left to do, I have no idea. Get her tummy tucked for her husband and then return to work, it seems. Unsurprisingly, she is on Nanny number two by the end of the programme.

The mummies are also all too posh to breastfeed, apparently. There are a lot of bottles of Aptamil being bandied about. During a tour of the hospital it is announced that the hospital has 50 midwives, but only one lactation consultant. Really? The NHS doesn't have enough breast-feeding support either, but at least it encourages it. There is nothing wrong with formula feeding, and I would never claim otherwise, but are any of these women even prepared to give breastfeeding a go? It can be lovely, it can be a battle, it can be the worst experience of your life, but the only way to know is to try. These women are all taking pills to stop their milk coming in, seemingly without having been offered any alternative by the hospital.

So yes, I ended the programme filled with love for the NHS. York District Hospital safely delivered my daughter five and a half years ago, and I have only praise for them and the care we received during our stay. Things weren't perfect (no water birth option, no en suite bathrooms, no private rooms), but if I'd had £40,000 to spare, I wouldn't have dreamed of giving a penny to the Portland Hospital instead. For the gas and air was on tap. My midwife was an angel. My wishes were listened to and respected. And foie gras may not have been on the menu, but the toast I was offered for breakfast once my daughter finally emerged after 36 long hours of labour was one of the best (and most welcome) meals of my life.

I was also very lucky as York Hospital was not busy that day. I think it might have been a very different story if it had been a day when they were getting slammed with patients. I was the only one in my post-labour ward for 16 hours, and then only had to share it with one other person (rather than the usual three). I was very weak, so they also took my baby away for a couple of hours in the night to an impromptu nursery in the corridor so that I could have a break and some sleep. (Not that I got any sleep, but it was a kind thought.) I could well have wanted a few nights of being looked after in a luxury hotel after the birth (or really just a bit longer in hospital), but I don't think it would have made breastfeeding less stressful or my stitches heal any faster.

I used to work just around the corner from the Portland Hospital. I never really paid it much attention, since I was usually scuttling past to get to the office, the Tube station, Regent's Park or the great deli at Villandry. So I never saw any celebrity babies or future Arab sheiks being wheeled out of the building in their expensive prams or car seats. Besides, I didn't really "do" babies in those days. Now I would shout out that they were all fools, and had been taken well and truly for a ride. But would they listen? Would they care? No. For money is for them no object.