Easter Holiday Ideas. Save 20%.

From famine to feast!

There was a definite temperature lift this morning and a smell of spring. Partly this was due to my daily faceful of hay as I fed the pregnant sheep and alpaca at the crack of dawn, but mainly life just felt a tadge different. The chickens have finally started laying and now from a famine, I'm in feast mode desperately thinking of what to cook next! [Never happy, me]

In the greenhouse my dahlia seedlings are happy and alert and throughout the garden, stuff's emerging. Love it. 

In an effort to be organised I've looked at my yearly diary and planned ahead. Circumnavigating lambing and alpaca birthing carefully so as not to cause an issue, I have booked a holiday with the sproglets. Dad, unfortunately will be promoted to Director of Farming while I'm away, though he has kindly declined the role of Head of Poo! (Drat!)

Crabbing at nearby Padstow

So, early summer we three and mates shall depart for our favourite spot in Cornland..... (Cornwall to you) Trevella Park near Newquay. Last time I stayed with Trevella I confess that it was as the guest of the Park in return for my bloggy opinion of their service, facilities and accommodation. It was a dream assignment - we loved it and the kids (aged 12 and 10) have nagged and nagged to return (at our own expense I hasten to add) ever since. 

Wonderful Eden

I've been thinking about what makes Trevella so special and here are my top banana bullet points. 

• The site feels safe

• The site has interest for the smallest child to the biggest child (me) with fishing, pond dipping, games room and tons of space to play outdoors. 

• The caravans were spotless and roomy and warm, with all mod cons. We were last there when it was rainy and muddy and we still had a ball. 

• The location is fab for beaches, crabbing, Eden, supermarkets, surf school and lots more. Cornwall has it all, including better weather (for us)

• During the rapidly approaching two-week school holiday break 3-17 April 2015, Trevella are offering free Park Ranger Adventures, with guests challenged to discover local insects and wildlife, learn to fish and develop their survival skills. 

• Also this Easter Holidays on offer are night-time moth and bat walks, insect hunts, rockpooling, shelter building and map reading. [Hopefully the little darlings will be exhaused after all that, leaving parents to sip a wine on the balcony in the evening.... ahhh bliss...) 

To watch a fab video of Trevella click here 

NB. Savings of up to 20% are available on Easter holidays for bookings made and paid in full before 28 February. Prices for a four-night midweek break from 6 April start from £196 for up to four people sharing a static caravan.

Contact Trevella to book your own adventure www.trevella.co.uk or call 01637 830 308

Summer Holiday Ideas - Trevella Holiday Park, Cornwall: The verdict

As you may know, I was offered a four night stay at Trevella Park in Cornwall for last half term..... It was a dreamy assignment.

The verdict from both the mums and the kids was: Absoloooootely brilliant. We will be booking again and may well enrol the sproglets in some surfin' school activity next summer..... The mums, meanwhile, will be readin' books and eatin' pasties. Yum!

Trevella Park facilities are just what is required. The caravans are spotlessly clean and were fab for our gang of 7 and 3 mums: We booked 3 caravans which was perfect as we felt like we were on tour as we debated where to eat breakfast or dinner, (breakfasts were momumental affairs but dinners were mainly take-aways from the Chinese, Domino's and Morrisons, - well, the mums were on hols too y'know!)

The caravans were warm and toasty thanks to the heaters in every room (too hot sometimes) and the TV was a god-send for those evening when the sea-air had taken its toll. The beds were comfy and the kitchen was better stocked than at home, though I missed the dishwasher and would probably pay more for a caravan if one was available!

All in all, it was the best time ever and though the weather was changeable and the mud relentless, it only stormed at night and, as you can see from our photos, our days were gorgeous. We escaped Cornwall on the Friday before the big, BIG storm battered the UK but we understand Trevella Park was largely untouched.

Book now if you fancy a holiday for next year. When we were there in October, the reception phone was ringing off the hook with bookings for 2014!

Review care of The Archers At The Larches.com

Check out other reviews of the Park here 

Crabbing at Padstow

Bubblegum ice-cream at Padstow

Lobster Hatchery Padstow



THE most gorgeous smelling candle factory
(Boy clearly impressed)

http://www.stevalcandlecompany.co.uk/
A must in my stocking for Christmas



Trevella: Arming sproglets... wrong on so many counts
(Boy still impressed)

Highwaymen hold up Domino's Pizza driver

Beach babe... in October!!!

Crowded!!! Cornland Beach..... Fab weather

Eden Project - a brilliant (if expensive) day out
http://www.edenproject.com/

Tea bushes at Eden Project

What is it with this girl and ice-cream?



Brain freeze!



Pumpkin carving at Eden



Recycling display at Eden featuring The Archers at The Larches.... so famous!

Half Term ideas at Trevella Park

Camp....

We went to Shell Island at the height of the season last year. Never again. This year we escaped as soon as school finished and stayed for almost a week or as near as we dared to the weekend when the site began to fill up with humans with their own 'taste' in music. Personally I like the sounds of nature when I'm camping not blaring music. Some of the nature sounds are better than others. The ones I'm not so keen on are; children bickering over the least wonky camp chair or last cereal variety pack, babies wailing as their parents slap on the sun cream and the father teenage banter as they debate the shoes/no shoes question.

But empty and basked in sun, Shell Island is a paradise.

The rock pools were amazing this year. We found HUGE spider crabs, 12" star fish, fish, hermit crabs, flat fish, jelly fish and watched dolphins leap from a flat, shimmering sea. It was unbelievable.

I'll never leave the UK again. Fortunately I cannot afford to leave the UK again.

Poor Daddy, we're abandoning him again and he's stuck with the animals. He's once again King of the remote.

The half-way point of the holidays..

It has taken me longer than I expected to get over the loss of little Queenie. The children seemed to bounce back just a few days after we lost her but I brooded and often sat on the bench overlooking her grave. My sister sent me St John's Wort. It's working. (Ta sis)

The other three cade lambs are now huge. Where once they would bleat a delightful hello, now they cry out for us with deep baaas as we pass their latest electrified enclosure. Nowadays these tones sound more like the voices of choirboys well past their sell-by date.

The holidays are progressing well. We three have been camping in Wales and this time we had fantastic weather and a fantastic site. The 7yo was amazed. After last year (where we all spent more time honing our card skills while the rain  drowned out the sound of our portable speakers..) the boy had decreed that he would never camp again and instead would go to work with Daddy. Daddy was horrified, there's only so much slave labour the boy would tolerate before asking to use the fork lift a thousand times a minute! Eventually I insisted and boy came with me, reluctantly.

I found the campsite online and it seemed decent enough. It was near Pennal in the Dyfi Valley and close to Aberdyfi beach. Gwerniago farm Camping is just what we wanted; a small site with enough space for the sproglets to run about without driving other campers potty, decent showers and not to far from the beach. This campsite ticked all the boxes and after the sprogs helped set up the tent they were off marauding with similarly minded sprogs - a weird experience at first for me, being abandoned by one's children, but one I could deffo get used to!

I was much better at packing this year. Last year I took the kitchen sink and spent my time rearranging stuff to make room for us! This year I was more organised. I took essentials and easy prep food. The children insisted on that gourmet of foods (reserved only for camping I hasten to add) Smash. Do you remember the ads in the 1970s? Hilarious. See them again here.

We took our trusty bucket BBQ but most pitches had an open camp fire already, lovely to sit around in the evening with marshmallows on sticks. Still, our BBQ is easy to cook over in pot or frying pan and the 9yo managed to prep, cook and eat 8 pancakes one morning while the 7yo warmed his tinned sausage and beans. Cordon Bleu here we come.

We had some delicious meals, made all the better for the 9yo and the 7yo cooking them. I found a book at the library which was rather fun and it gave me some ideas - The Camping Cookbook. It also gave me a laugh at times, being that Annie Bell the author, must have been cooking all the time while her friends and family had a great camping holiday with restaurant quality food! In any case my children seemed amazed that I was happy for them to cook over the fire and, supervised, there were no accidents. Suddenly it seems the children are really growing up.

Aberdyfi is amazing, made all the better by the gorgeous weather. We crabbed, beached, ice creamed and generally chilled. Such a shame Daddy was at work, he's our expert crabber!

Probably one of the best sights was the 9yo engrossed in a book. To date, reading hasn't really been something she's been interested in, she's more sporty and creative. Suddenly she seems to have added reading to her repertoire and loves to tell you of characters she loves and plots she's enjoying. I'm so pleased.

An Introduction to Camping

I love camping, the romantic version; the one excluding washing up or a wee in the middle of the night. So, ignoring all bad bits, I pushed my rose-tinted specs up a bit higher on my nose and announced to la famille that we were going proper camping, (and not just in our own field!) The 7yo and the 5yo have never been camping before but husband has, he immediately excused himself, pretending he had to work! Good one! To be fair it does pay the bills. Undaunted, I set about borrowing equipment from my sister and began the hunt for a camp site near to the mid Welsh coast.

I felt so smug when I spied a gem of a site AND, billy-bonus, they had space for us.

It was three hours drive to camp, almost as long as it took to pack the car! But it was so worth it: In a little village that couldn't even boast a pub, a white washed cottage lay in ten acres. Each pitch was mowed into a figure eight; a big circle for your tent, a small circle containing a fire pit for warmth or cooking.

We had an absolute ball: The whole camp came together the first night to sing songs around a camp fire, to cook popcorn and melt mallows. We made FIRE at our own pitch, always a big hit with kids, and I caramelised sausages (OK, I burned them a bit!) but we invented Double Chocolate Chip Melted Mallows.... yuuuuummmmmmy, and soon the charcoal taste went away.

The weather was fab, always a help, and the beaches stunning. Check out our snaps. Thank you Naturebase Holidays for a safe, wonderful, child-friendly time.








Tired after a long beach day..... so looking forward to caramelised sausages!

The Camp Out.....

Husband always winces when I say; 'I know: I've got a good idea.....' No trust, no faith!

Home Field is our play field; there was a football pitch and golf hole there earlier in the season but now its a meadow on fertilizer drugs: Sky high with feathery grasses, it desperately needs to be harvested and made into hay.... If only I could locate Land Man and his tractor, but he's super-busy managing nature on his patch. However, in line with my new plan, hubby mowed a play-lawn near the bonfire and paddling pool............

A long, long time ago my pal lent us her tent. It's two-man tent but she seems to have lost the men, as all I can find in the bags are the tent poles and the canvas.. boom, boom! Geddit? It's early in the morning, bare with me....

....... It was still about 23°, late in the afternoon, when hubby and I started to put up the tent on the newly mowed grass. It is really cool, shaped like an igloo with plenty of room for one adult and two pint-sized sproglets .... Oh, the adult will be me then?!! (Hubby's more 5* than tent!!!)

By 9pm they were scrubbed and, military style, were on parade in the house.

'Blow up Beds?'

'Check,' they saluted

'PJs?'

'Check.'

'ONE Toy?'

At this, a squabble erupted: Apparently the 5yo was smuggling in lots more duty free than his allowance permitted. The 7yo, was incensed, purely because she hadn't considered contravening the rules and was furious with herself.

Finally we got to the tent.

'You've chosen the chilliest night for ages,' Hubby helpfully noted, before zipping us in and abandoning us for a night of peace in the house.... Grrrr.

....We sang, we told jokes, we discussed life the universe and everything and then, when my eyes could stay awake no more, I screened some cartoons on my iPod.

All was well until about 10:30pm: Hubby had mislaid a chicken, probably Happy, our disabled girl. Back out of the tent we searched and searched, only to find her in the coop all along! *This is exceptionally good news actually, as it means all our new rescued battery hens have finally sussed how to put themselves to bed. We'll just lock up and turn on the fence each night from now on. Yipeee...

Back in the tent the children had a wobble.

'We want to go into Daddy now.' The 7yo began to sniff, weeping would shortly follow.

'Nope.' I bellowed. 'Go to sleep. Right now!'

Remarkably, they did! Then the rain came, and came, AND came! I'm pleased to say that the tent is waterproof, my bed was beyond uncomfortable, and later in the night the 5yo and 7yo both abandoned their beds, in favour of sleeping on me! But: We have overcome another 1st - Sleeping in a tent. We are now cheaply portable.

Back in the house this morning (it's still sodding raining) I'm shattered but happy.