Summer in the mountains

Summer is rapidly approaching (or at least, it is if you don’t live in the UK ) and we have started thinking about how we should spend our holidays. Kids in France get EIGHT WEEKS off in summer (even more in secondary) – you parents who moan about holidays being too long in the UK don’t know you’re born.

Some books and other stuff

Sorry. Not the best title, is it? But I thought it was time I did a round up of some interesting travel-related things I’ve been sent lately by various PRs so here it is.

Dorling Kindersley (or DK as I believe they are now more jauntily known) have launched some new family travel guides to London, Paris, Washington and New York. Most travel guides like Lonely Planet and Rough Guides do tend to have a small section devoted to families, but one with children in mind throughout is much easier and obviously more comprehensive. As well as featuring all the usual sites any guidebook would probably feature, a nice touch is the “kids corner” sections which add some random facts about the area or attraction which are likely to appeal to children, things they can look out for or even a little activity to do. The guides are colourful, informative and easy to use, although personally I’d have liked to see more suggestions of places to eat.

Win a holiday to South Africa or Italy

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.)

Costa Concordia

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.

Donkey-trekking in France with children

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.

Holiday staff taught CPR

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.

Family-friendly skiing

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.