'Trees'

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The brief that was delivered to my inbox on Friday evening informed us that Tara has a mild obsession with a certain element of nature:

Anyway, to indulge me and my obsession, this week's theme is: Trees.

Simple as that. Trees near your home, from a holiday, new trees, ancient trees. Trees you used to climb as a child, trees you picnic under. Trees.

My first thought was of a very special tree to me, and to The Boy.

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His room is quite small and therefore needed something special doing to it. I had always wanted a room for my child that would be a place that was individual. Somewhere to spark their imagination and provide them with play opportunities. Somewhere to send them off on that soft white cloud to the land of nod with pleasant dreams.

We decorated his room on the Easter Bank Holiday 2009 and each single leaf that I painted was detailed with overwhelming love and attention for my unborn child.

'Star' Attractions

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Last night I fell asleep watching the stars twinkling overhead in the sky.

No, I haven't taken up camping, that is so never going to happen! The Forest Holidays cabins have large floor-ceiling windows (in the living room and main bedroom) which allow the light to stream in and cleverly illuminate the solid wooden floors and help to bring the outside 'in'. This morning when The (poorly) Boy came in with us at 4.55, he also pointed out the stars. At 7.25 when we all woke up, he glanced up to look at the trees and declared 'stars, gone.'

After a hearty continental breakfast we set off for a local attraction intriguingly called 'Puzzlewood'. It is so called because the whole place is a bit of a puzzle. It is full of scowles (a geological feature originated through the erosion of natural underground cave systems, uplift and erosion caused the cave system to become exposed at the surface) and  a mile of pathways which were laid down by a local landowner in the early 1800s. These pathways meander through the trees and gulleys to open up this ancient forest, originally for the amusement of his friends and children. It's a little bit of a local celebrity having been used in the latest series of Merlin (the episodes: 'The Crystal Cave', 'The Eye of the Pheonix', and 'The Coming of Arthur', plus the one with the giant scorpions shudder) and a Doctor Who episode entitled 'Flesh and Stone'.

This was a completely different attraction to yesterday's debacle and looked promising from the outset. At the entrance there is a lovely little coffee shop selling home-made items, which doubles as a gift shop. Next to this there is a timber-trail playground set amongst 10-15 picnic benches. Follow the path along to a few farmyard animals (chickens, ducks, geese, a pig wallowing in mud), and just before the wood there is a barn half of which houses more farm animals (sheep, goats), the other half is home to a wooden puzzle; 'a maze of secret doors, dead ends, ups and downs and rounds and rounds'. We didn't go in this because The Boy is too young at the moment, I would imagine that children six and up would have great fun in there.

The wood itself is glorious! Even in this monochrome and dreary season, it is awash with colour from the mosses, ferns and lichens covering all the rock formations and banks. As you enter into the main glade, it is perfectly obvious as to why people think that it is the inspiration behind the elves' woods in JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. It is magnificent! The whole wood is riddled with paths twisting and turning through this chasm in the rocks or over these tree-trunks or under this fallen tree. It is stunning and awe-inspiring. We loved it, The Boy had fun squelching through the mud until he was faced with the first of many sets of steps. Daddy carried him and he soon fell asleep nestled in.

Be warned: there is no way you could take a pushchair along the paths, heavily pregnant women may want to give it a miss (lots of slippery, steep steps and paths) and there are no sign-posts for the way out, you have to explore (the paths do seem to loop back around to the main glade, but if you keep the field with the cows on your right, it heads back to the entrance). Saying that, this is a must-see local attraction; absolutely magnificent!

Our timing turned out to be impeccable as always; just as we sat down in the cabin the heavens opened and pelted the forest with huge and heavy hailstones!

Bacon baps and perky pigs

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I was woken up this morning by the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops falling through the leaves outside and a symphony of birds. As I turned over I could feel the dawn's light through my eyelids and smiled inwardly; holidays! The view that greeted me was a towering mesh of deciduous skeletons.

The night was a mixed bag. I flitted between sleeping soundly and then getting really hot legs and feet and having to throw off the bed covers; I'm used to a 7.5tog duvet at home not a 10tog! The Boy first stirred at 5.45, but then settled back down by himself until 7.15 (a full 12 hours in the end)! Hoorah for the great outdoors and fresh air!

We had a fabulous breakfast of variety pack cereals (like children aren't we?), croissants, pain au chocolat and coffee, accompanied by yet more bird song as the window in the kitchen slides all the way back to bring the outdoors in. Wellies on and up we squelched through the mud (by the way, the Maclaren didn't get bogged down at all) to the reception centre for our welcome talk. It's a lovely touch to have this chat explaining the facilities, the ranger's job (including activities for children and night-vision walks), the food & wine delivery service (to your room, ordered through your television!), the bike hire and the local attractions and walks. All of this is accompanied by a bacon butty and a cup of coffee. Vegetarian like me? No problem, would you like a croissant or an egg roll?

After lunch, we visited Dick Whittington Farm Park. We will never go again & I wouldn't recommend it. It's £6 for adults and children over 3 years old, and £5 for children under the age of 3. Babies who can't walk are free. Personally I think that's really steep, toddlers should be cheaper than that, if not free. I don't think I've ever heard of a place that charges for at least under 2s. The total cost was £17 and we were there for 1hr and 15 minutes. In that time, we spent 40 minutes in the reasonable-quality soft play area, which was packed: lots of weekend dads who unfortunately were spending more time on their iPads than playing with their children. The toilets are, um, functional but the floor is quite frankly filthy.

And so to the animals. Yes there are a selection of farm animals including pigs, some sweet lambs, donkeys, goats, chickens and geese. However, these chickens are in a ridiculously low pen which made me think of battery farming. I was not particularly impressed with the conditions that many of these animals were living in. The aviary is four foot by five foot housing a large amount of small birds, too many for that space. There is a 'tropical' house with a couple of terrapins, one tank of goldfish, some lizards and snakes, tortoises and something large and worrying, I forget it's name which is quite frankly probably for the best. To be honest, the place looked like a pet shop rather than something intended for visitors. 'Extras' on the farm included a snowy owl, a pedal-kart track (an extra £1) and a sandpit. I will admit that we were chuffed to see a couple of llamas, The Boy thought they were camels which I thought was quite an impressive connection to make.

However, back we came to out beautiful cabin which The Boy is calling our 'little house'.

Oh and his new favourite word is 'huh-woh', as in 'hello'. Very cute!

A much-needed break

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Things have been fraught recently; I hate this time of year finding it really depressing, life has been monotonous, we've been knackered, and our summer holidays seem such a long way off in the future. I declared that we needed a break and investigated a couple of different options. I have only once been to Butlins (Pwllheli, Noth Wales) when I was in Year Six and I am sure that it has moved on a great deal since 1988, but I looked on TripAdvisor and was not overwhelmed with the standard of accommodation, which was a shame because the entertainment looked fabulous. Centre Parcs was the obvious choice but not at £800 for 3-night weekend break!

Then I remembered that my brother had been to a Forest Holidays site in the past. The one at the Forest of Dean opened in September 2010, and being only an hour away seemed ideal because The Boy is like his mother and does not travel well. We booked a Copper Beech cabin for the tidy sum of £250!

Today was the day for our mini-break. We've never actually been away as just a family before. We've been away with my parents, but not just the three of us. We finally managed to pack everything into the car and I withheld The Boy's sleep so he could doze off on the journey. Did he? Did he heck! He normally sleep for two hours during the day, he had 16 minutes in the car. He was distraught, I was distraught, hubby wasn't happy either!

We rocked up to the Bracelands site mid-afternoon. Check-in isn't normally until 4pm, but we were there an hour earlier and they were happy to hand over the keys. The cabins are at the top of a hill nestled into the middle of a forest which has carefully been cleared in strategic places to make way for 77 cabins, a Forest Retreat welcome centre and a few gravel tracks connecting them together.

This is the main difference between Forest Holidays and Centre Parcs; there is no swishy swimming pool, no soft-play, no chain-restaurants, nothing like that. There is a reception centre that has a mini-mart and there are the trees. That's it! Make your own entertainment together as a family. And this is exactly what we need.

We've already made a start at having fun together, just the three of us. The Boy has already experienced something new: splashing in puddles. Don't get me wrong I have taken him out but puddles in tarmac aren't quite the same somehow. He has thoroughly embraced the concept and we almost had to drag him away from them! The Boy was absolutely captivated with the cabin and the whole idea of trees being right outside. From the moment that we pulled into the space outside our Copper Beech cabin and opened the door, all that could be heard was the rain falling through the canopy of the evergreen forest and the birds singing in the trees. He was enthralled! It's due to rain tomorrow, but it's not a problem; we've got our wellies and waterproofs.