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.

Half term hellidays

How can a week in term-time fly by so quickly, but a week of school holiday last an eternity?

This week back in "normality" has gone in a flash, but half-term last week felt like forever. I don't know why. It's not like my daughter was particularly bad company. Or that we were short of things to do. Alas, there was no exciting travel to go on, but thanks to living in a family friendly city, our days were full, and the telly kept to a minimum. But nonetheless the days were definitely twice as long as a normal day.

Anyway, because successful bloggers do top tens, here are our top ten February half-term in Yorkshire activities:

1. The Jorvik Viking Festival

As well as lots of bearded men wandering around dressed in scratchy blankets, the encampments on Coppergate and Parliament Street gave kids the chance to watch knitting, try on helmets, take selfies in front of longboats, and see stuffed and live animals. There was also a craft tent where you could make badges and T shirts and jewellery, although not for free. However, you could play some weird hybrid of chess and battleships, colour in a picture and stamp your name in runes without handing over any of their Viking coins.

Longboat and half a Viking

My favourite sheep ever

2. The Sign Was Back!

"Welcome To York, Where The Men Are Hunky And The Chocolate Chunky". It's a generational thing. A massive Yorkie bar on a board outside York station, only visible from the left-hand side of the northbound train. Then Aviva decided to advertise there instead and life was never the same again. But to celebrate Yorkie's 40th birthday, York Chocolate Story decided to resurrect the sign in Kings Square. It was a bit of a let-down. It wasn't even 3D. And it instantly cost me a Yorkie bar, since my daughter didn't know what one was. But the sign was back!

She obscured the lie

Still looking for those hunky men, after all these years.

3. Museums And Art Galleries

Museums always say that they have special half-term activities on for all the family. But - let's face it - these are mostly boxes of crayons left out on tables. With a paper template and scissors. And the grown-ups end up doing it all. We (or rather I) made some puppets at the city Art Gallery and an Edwardian donkey at the Castle Museum. Are you impressed?

4. Snowdrop Planting at Beningbrough Hall.

Despite the fact Arctic winds were blowing, we helped Beningbrough plant 300,000 snowdrops to celebrate its 300th birthday, all along its ha-ha walk. If they hadn't offered us free parkin and hot apple juice afterwards, I'd have said they were having the last laugh, ha ha. After a brisk run-around in the play area it was time to catch the cafe's last cup of tea of the day.

5. Swimming.

We managed to catch the pool not too full in school holidays, possibly because they were colouring the water pink. The management thought it would be fun, but it just made parents suspicious. "Who's bleeding?" "Who wee-ed?" "Is it safe?" Anyway, our visit coincided with that of not one but two school friends so that meant instant entertainment for the girl and an easier hour for me (even if I still got wet). Result - until my electronic locker key failed on exit. We then had a long wait, dripping and cold in the changing room, until a pool attendant reunited us with our towels and clothes.

6. Playdates

These are good when they are at other people's houses, less good when it's your gaff getting trashed.

7. A trip to the seaside

Off to Scarborough, where it hailed. We took shelter in the arcades (we won a Bassett's Fruit Salad!) and the Clock Cafe, which hasn't changed in fifty years and gives a free bucket & spade to kids who order fish fingers.

8. Snow

And the next day, after all that hail, there was proper snow in York. Hurrah! Or a thick layer of encrusted ice at least. You could just about make a snowball. But it was exciting for this generation of kids growing up with global warming.

9. A trip to Leeds.

Always keen to use our Family and Friends Railcard, we went to Leeds to see a show. We met Daddy for lunch in a shopping centre and then went to see The Bear at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. It was based on the Raymond Briggs book. It was lovely. The polar bear did a poo. My daughter laughed. Then it went back to the North Pole to have a baby. My daughter cried.

10. Mums Night Out

A necessary part of any school holiday. A mummy friend talked me into going to a burlesque show. Only it wasn't so much burlesque as sordid striptease. With only women's wobbly bits on display. The ukulele band in the first part of the evening had lured us into a false sense of security. We left choking on Johnson's Baby Powder.

The grand pink uke of York

And only four weeks til Easter. Arse.

Sherlock

One of the things I love about Sherlock (the others being the cast, the pace, the music, the wit and pretty much everything else about it) is the fact that it is set in the modern day. But this special New Year episode took place in Victorian times. Hm. "Well, that's not very original, is it?" I thought when I saw the trailer. Why mess with a good thing? Why go back? Because it's where Sherlock was created? Because Dr Who writers like time travel? Because there are always past crimes that need solving?

Although fear not, it did turn out to be a little bit original in the end. A lot of it took part in Sherlock's head - or "mind palace", as he called it - and not in Victorian times at all. Er, right. It seems that a lot of drugs were consumed in the making of this episode.

It was possibly all just an excuse to get Moriarty back. Because what it boiled down to - as it did, coincidentally in And Then There Were None - is how you can be seen to have your brains blown out by a shot to the head and yet go on to commit more murders. It's all about the art of the accomplice, the illusion, and the morgue getting the right body at the right time.

It was fun, fast and furious, and just a little bit bonkers.

And a lot of it was filmed at Tyntesfield, a National Trust property close to the M5 and Bristol, where we spent a rainy day in August. It didn't mention its Sherlock connections then, though. I think it had been sworn to secrecy. But as of now, it's got a whole Sherlock trail for visitors to enjoy. But sadly no Benedict Cumberbatch at the end of it. Although maybe the odd photo of him looking aloof in a deerstalker, if you're lucky.

Tyntesfield is apparently "a masterpiece of Gothic revival architecture", which no doubt appealed to the Sherlock creators. It was home to the Gibbs family, who were wealthy rather than aristocratic. That means to say, they weren't posh. It definitely has the air of a home rather than a palace (or mind palace), with its sumptuous red and green flock wallpapers, intricate wooden tiled floors, curved turret seating, balmy pot plants and giant carved stone fireplaces. There is an organ room and a billiards room, a boudoir covered in dust sheets, and a supposedly beautiful chapel which our daughter wouldn't let us look at. Its attic is jam-packed with storeroom "stuff", from frayed old tinsel Christmas trees to piles of chairs to a child's bed left in a corridor. There are musical instruments for children to play, and there is silver for them to polish while dressed in a maid's pinny.

On a practical note, the house is quite a walk from the car park and the ticket office for little legs. It's an even further walk to the kitchen garden and the children's play area, which we did not attempt in the pouring rain. It is recommended that you pre-book your tickets to the house, as they have to limit numbers. Though we had no problem going straight in at what should have been the height of the summer season. However, we arrived as it opened, and the weather was so lousy I think most people were staying at home that day. I expect the lure of Sherlock will put further pressure on visitor quotas. While we were there, we also had a nice lunch in the Cow Barn cafe at Home Farm. Yes, it was once a cow barn. The tables are in the old stalls, surrounded by whitewashed brick walls, cast iron railings, and the occasional stone trough. (No comments about it befitting my child's table manners, please.)

Wolf Hall (2)

"Where is Wolf Hall?" I asked in a previous post. Now I know - turns out it's Barrington Court in Somerset. We stopped off at this National Trust property on a whim en route to Hawkchurch in Devon. We were running early owing to inclement weather at another National Trust property off the M5 (Tyntesfield) curtailed our visit, and our host wasn't yet home from work. We had an hour to kill, the rain showers had cleared, and the sun was reflecting in the puddles. It was a definite case of "Why not?"

So yes, previously unbeknownst to us, this Tudor mansion, left devoid of furniture after its previous owners the Lyle (as in Tate & Lyle sugar) family moved out, was taken over by the BBC last year as the backdrop to its production of Wolf Hall. They left some of the costumes behind in the otherwise empty rooms to prove it.

We paid off our £104 family membership of the National Trust in just six days this summer, by using properties in lieu of service stations to break up long car journeys between York, Warwickshire and Devon. In order of priority, Barrington Court, like all the others, offered clean toilets and a beautiful garden. The garden had archery to try, games to play, fish to admire, flowers to sniff, and space for our daughter (cooped up in the back of the car for far too long) to run around in. There was also a children's trail of things to spot in the house, though as usual our daughter refused to spot anything other than what was on the trail. Besides, how could I persuade her that the video clips of Wolf Hall playing were interesting when even I had found the television adaptation dark and dull? (Though there was a flicker of attention when I said that the miserable man in black was also the voice of Flop on Bing.) There was the regulation "nice tea room" (with free drinks for kids) for final refreshments before we clambered back into the car and moved on. Definitely what I call a Welcome Break.

Easter Activities Away from CBeebies

I'm back! Oh, you lucky bloggers who have been able to write during the Easter holidays. You plainly have a lot more energy. Or you don't have a daughter who is currently unable to fall asleep by herself and likes to take hours doing so, plainly sensing I have somewhere I would rather be. Or you don't have a husband who spends the evening hogging the laptop to read football scores work.

But anyway, pre-school is back, and so are my two hours a day of me-time. Never mind the fact that I can't currently see my house owing to piles of beads, wool, shredded tissue paper, buttons, coins, pebbles, Lego, sequins, glitter, chocolate and fluffy yellow chicks (not live ones, or ever live ones). It's a frigging mess. That's school holidays for you. The only thing I seem particularly skilled at tidying away is the chocolate, mostly because there is no available shelf-space for it, and well, it's been a long fortnight.

Did you think for a moment from my description of the mess that we might have spent the whole holiday doing Easter craft activities? Ha ha. How little you know us. I assure you we didn't. My daughter just likes spreading bite-sized crap everywhere. Which is why I tried to spend as little of the holiday as possible at home. My daughter had assigned herself a tight CBeebies viewing schedule as a backdrop to spreading her bite-sized crap around, which I was determined to thwart. Every day I had to drag her screaming away from Bing or Mister Maker so that we could do something "fun" or "educational" and not end up with me being goaded to do one of Mister Maker's sodding Minute Makes, since the items required for it were currently thinly spread all over the carpet. "You'll thank me when you're older," I roared like my mother before me, even though I know she won't.

So where we did we go? We live in York, Yorkshire, and shouldn't be short of options. We aren't. Although the crowds and the weather can prove both limiting and irritating. Anyway, here is my top ten suggestions for escaping CBeebies in our neck of the woods:

1. Go on a play date.

Where you end up with so much squabbling you end up turning on CBeebies. Hm. Back to square one.

2. Go on a country walk.

Last time

Better! We did the Farndale daffodils walk, since this is the only time of year you can do it. I have happy memories of this walk a couple of years ago on a glorious spring day, our daughter in a pushchair, the sun beating down on us, the daffodils at their peak along the river banks, and scores of old ladies serving me tea and buns in a barn at the far end.

Unfortunately when we arrived this time, this happened:

And it turns out that my husband, despite being raised in Cumbria (or maybe because he was raised in Cumbria), doesn't do rain with good cheer.

And it turns out that the daffodils that far north aren't as advanced as the daffodils in York, but there were a few just starting to come out...

And it turns out that a three mile walk is still pushing a four year old a bit too far.

I will admit that a picnic on a rain-soaked bog was a bit of a stupid idea.

But hey, there are still old ladies serving cakes in barns at either end of the walk, so that has to count for something, right?

Mummy had a lovely time. But nobody else did.

3. Go to the cinema.

I know that technically that this is escaping CBeebies only to go and stare at another screen. But I took my daughter to see Cinderella, and coupled with the Frozen Fever short beforehand, the whole thing was such a magical experience it brought a tear to my eye. I once directed and starred in my own production of Cinderella. We may not necessarily be talking quite the same scale as Kenneth Branagh here. I may have been aged eight, and in my lounge, with a Clarks clodhopper playing the role of glass slipper. But whatever, it's a story with a special resonance for my inner girl, and this film was -as a result - a delight. And my daughter was so transfixed throughout that she insisted Daddy take her to see it again the following week. Sorry, Daddy.

4. Go to a museum

Museums in York - invariably heaving in school holidays. So we met some friends at the World Of James Herriot In Thirsk. This museum is so brilliant that is going to merit its own blog post in the very near future. It was hailing outside, but dead quiet inside. Not so good for the museum possibly, but just right for us. We spent nearly two hours exploring all that it has to offer. Things like this:

 And this:

And this:

Go on, admit you're more than a little curious, even if only to find out what those ghastly looking tools are for. And it may be as bad as you think. More soon...

5. Visit relatives.

Only sometimes the relatives you want to visit are on the elderly side and live in a residential home that doesn't come well equipped for young children. This means offering a bribe as an incentive to make your child not disgrace herself. In our case the bribe was a trip to Tropical World in Roundhay Park. It was a sunny day. Unlike our country walk, at last a chance for a picnic in appropriate weather. We ate our sandwiches. And only then did I notice the queue for Tropical World. Given that it was so warm, I figured, how many people in Leeds would want to spend the afternoon inside a giant hothouse? It turns out - all of them. A rare hats off to our girl, who insisted she would wait patiently for an hour to go in and see her beloved fruit bats. It's a shame she won't apply the same behaviour at a supermarket check-out or when Mummy stops to have a chat with somebody in the street. And yes, that did say fruit bats. The butterflies, the meerkats, the monkeys? A mere flicker of attention. The yellow python? Fairly interesting (while Mummy hyperventilates). But the fruit bats? Just wow. Apparently.

6. Go on holiday.

Lucky those who can afford a proper holiday in school holidays. We have to make do with visiting Grandpa. Thankfully Grandpa lives in Grasmere. And this year, the sun was shining. And the local farmer, who has been known to spray liquid manure over the field in front of the house on a Bank Holiday weekend, had this year deposited a load of newborn lambs there instead. Instant, free and very special entertainment. Until my dad served up what he termed a "lump of lamb" on the Monday.

7. Go on an Easter egg hunt.

Misty morning, Grasmere

These are so much fun, it may turn out that you have to do it all over again. And again. Until you hide that last egg a bit too well and can't remember where you put it. Then it's back to tears. Only consoled by CBeebies.

8. Join the National Trust.

Then you can have lots of free days out, or free before ice cream, gift shop harassment (by your child, not the staff, I hasten to add) and more (Cadbury's sponsored) Easter egg hunts. A bit of history and art for grown-ups, a giant play area for children. Cake for all. This Easter we went to Goddards and Beningborough Hall in York, Nostell Priory near Wakefield, and finally Allan Bank in Grasmere no less than four times, because it's just up the hill from my dad's house.

Goddards

Swing after hail, Beningborough

Nostell Priory

The wobbly play bridge at Nostell Priory

Swing in the sun, Allan Bank

9. Go to the seaside.

Unless it's still hailing, you may find that a few other people have the same idea as you. Fortunately for us this meant a very crowded train to Scarborough rather than a traffic jam on the A64, because at least the train was actually going somewhere. The sea front resembled Benidorm in high season and we were surrounded by little girls called Britney and Tegan eating Quavers and drinking Fruit Shoots and throwing sand in each other's faces, but we still found a patch of beach that was ours. Even if my daughter only informed me she had left the spade at the bottom of the hole she had dug when we had walked about a mile away from it. Fish and chips for lunch, a Twister lolly for pudding, and an 80p ride on a funicular railway on our way back to the station.

10. Make a spring collage to use up the bite-sized crap spread around your carpet.

Easter craft activities at last. Don't get too proud of us though - she claims she got the idea from The Tweenies.

Thus the two weeks are done, and they went a lot better than I expected, mostly thanks to the hail giving way to sun. I only bought myself one bottle of gin, for example. My daughter, on the other hand, is still complaining about me making her miss Bing.

(In denial that I am going to have seven weeks of this in the not so distant future.)