I’m still feeling disproportionately sorry for myself for having my arm in a sling and missing what probably would have been a brilliant trip to Russia, so I’ve been dreaming about how nice it would be to get away – in common with most people in January, I think.
Today two brilliant-sounding competitions have dropped into my inbox so I thought I’d share them. (This isn’t a sponsored post by the way, I just really liked the sound of them.) Continue reading
Like everybody else, I’ve been horrified by the terrible images of the Costa Concordia listing and saddened that not everybody made it out alive.
I have actually been on Costa Concordia – I wrote about its spa for The Telegraph – it’s one of only two cruise ships I’ve ever been on and it was enormous. Continue reading
I’ve been writing a lot about skiing lately, which I can’t even DO at the moment, so I thought I’d include a nice summery post about a trip we took with a donkey for easyJet magazine a few years ago. It was a really fun trip, and a really nice way to be able to go for a long walk with small children without them complaining. Although we also discovered that donkeys aren’t called stubborn for nothing. Anyway, here is the article.
There’s taking life and a gentle pace, and then there is taking it at a donkey’s pace. If you’re looking for a way to appreciate the countryside in the slow lane, you can’t beat hiking with a donkey. Continue reading
I don’t usually do press-releasey type posts but I thought this one was about such a good idea which more holiday companies should follow I wanted to share it. Continue reading
Happy New Year! Hopefully you are having a better start to the year than me – my left arm is all strapped up as I have a broken shoulder. I fell while skiing in Les Coches just before Christmas, nearly knocked myself out (hooray for my ski helmet) and somehow fractured my shoulder. However, I didn’t realise at the time and skiied for another two days and only got it checked out when I got back as it was still hurting. How hard is that? I am absolutely gutted though for several reasons – I am unable to drive which is a real pain living where I live or do much household stuff, which is of course OK for me but not brilliant for my husband, who is now having do do all that kind of stuff as well as renovating the house. And in a couple of weeks I was due to go to visit the brand new ski resort of Sochi in Russia with CrystalSki and now I can’t go. Boo. Continue reading
It might seem an obvious thing to say, but when you’re planning a family holiday, it’s really important to get the accommodation right. So while the idea of booking a hotel, with your cooking, cleaning and shopping all done for you may seem a tempting idea, there can be some downsides. Continue reading
A cruise ship, yesterday
Have you ever been on a cruise with your family? I haven’t, but I quite fancy giving it a try. While cruises can have their downsides such as lack of independence (although that seems to be changing these days), the idea of having everything done for me, kids’ activities on tap and waking up somewhere different every morning is pretty appealing. Plus a lot of them have amazing facilities for families now, such as the cruises offered by Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruises and of course by the kings of family friendly cruises, Disney. I wrote a whole article about family friendly cruises for The Express last year, but the one that appeared in today’s is about cruising in the Caribbean. A lot of the info is relevant to families too though, so I thought I’d include it here. Also Linda Jones over on Have a Lovely Time has some excellent family cruising tips, so good, in fact, that I included them in my book. Continue reading
