New Holland in Essex (without lions)

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a tour of Essex taking in Holland and Australia.  Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).   

Essex: it's got spray tans, hair extensions, wicked heels, new gleaming teeth and can boast at being the county with the (arguably) longest coast line in the UK. Pete writes endlessly about Essex (expect a new book in October) so sometimes the family is caught up in his Joy of Essex research. Turns out this stop off is roughly where the non-lion of 2012 August bank holiday was hanging out... see here

If you go to that mostly North Sea coast line you can be in all sorts of worlds and enjoy:

• Wildlife - from seals to wading birds - see here
• End of the pier attractions at Southend, Walton on the Naze and Clacton
• 1950s beach fun on the greensward at Frinton
• The best fish grazing (winkles! cockles! fish and chips!) at Leigh on Sea's pubs and fish stalls
• Oil refineries at Canvey Island
• Tasty English wine at Mersea Island

Pete, Nell, the dog and I took a little trip to flat Dutch landscapes at New Holland - midway between Clacton and Frinton (reach via a train to the seaside towns and then take bus 7, 7x or 8 on to alight at the Roaring Donkey pub). Once in New Holland it's really not got a cliche Dutch feel at all. Instead the bungalows, neat gardens, low walls and big vehicles parked in most drives give a strong sense of being in olde worlde Australia, a Perth suburb like Scarborough.

If you're in Australia then you'll expect really good food. So get back on the bus and head to Frinton where the Mouse and Hat Restaurant (pic of menu sourcing board above) offers stunning deli treats. Stunning for the UK that is. It's midway down Connaught Avenue (once known as Essex's Bond Street, but now rather more like a Country Living magazine fantasy of bookshops, galleries, material stores, ice cream parlour and a friendly green grocer).

Treehouses, poison plants and broomstick lessons

THIS IS A GUEST POST 

The historic town of Alnwick is a fantastic place to visit. Despite being a small town on the rural coastline of Northumberland, it is home to one of the most recognisable tourist attractions in the UK: Alnwick Castle.

Alnwick Castle

The castle was chosen to play the role of Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter saga, and has since become a focal point for fans of the films from all over the world. The castle has all sorts of Harry Potter-related attractions and activities for fans of the films such as broomstick training, and is a great day out for all the family.

One of the largest inhabited castles in the UK, Alnwick is owned by the Percy family, who have spent significantly in order to restore the castle to former glories: take a walk around its stately halls and stunning grounds to fully experience the majesty of the castle.

Alnwick Gardens

A short walk from the castle, Alnwick Gardens are owned by the Duchess of Northumberland and since 1995 her efforts to transform the gardens have resulted in a beautiful area where surprise and imagination are present in each garden. Look out for the incredible Grand Cascade – the dramatic focal point of the garden which will draw you in as soon as you enter the garden.

The gardens have been designed by Jacques and Peter Wirtz, celebrated Belgian designers of global renown. They have brought the most beautiful trees and flowers in the world together to create fantastic displays; most recently the addition of 300 Tai Haku cherry trees that are native to Japan and China have added a touch of elegance.

The Poison Garden is a huge attraction too. Filled with plants that can quite literally kill, it’s fascinating to learn about them and the gruesome effects they can have on the human body.

Alnwick Gardens are also home to the Treehouse Restaurant – literally a restaurant up in the trees! The food here is absolutely delicious, although it can be a little pricey, but children are well catered for and you really will not be disappointed.

The town of Alnwick also has plenty of places to eat, whether you feel like some traditional fish and chips or if a spot of tea and cake is more your preference, there are lots of affordable and delicious places to grab a bite to eat. Staying in holiday cottages in Northumberland is a good idea, as there are plenty of cosy places to stay in and around Alnwick that are a little bit nicer than an ordinary B&B.

Steeped in history and a truly beautiful little town, Alnwick is definitely worth a visit thanks to the sheer variety of things do see and do in such a small place.

Around Britain No Plane verdict - we visited with the kids in 2007 and it was wonderful. The link above gives you a place to stay.

Over to you

Where's your favourite British town for a wide ranges of things to do and see?

Ride like they do in Mongolia

Nell bareback on George in Wales.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post is about how taking a ride on a horse just might make you feel as if you are away from it all in Mongolia. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my eco-friendly books and blogs).   

I was lucky to be allowed huge freedoms as a child - from the age of eight I was riding a 13hh pony around the Hertfordshire lanes and fields. Telstar had almost no brakes and turned into a bolting wreck if we met a tractor. Two ponies later my bigger 15hh mare, Cassiopeia, was traumatised by the sight and sound of pigs. Unfortunately there was a pig farm on two of my favourite routes. If we were attempting to walk on hind legs past the pigs and a car came too fast there could have been a disaster. Indeed riding today on roads is far riskier - people drive faster, in bigger vehicles and there are so many more people driving. Strangely I don't remember ever being frightened by my horses' behaviour - but people drove slower then so I was at less risk of being damaged too.

As a result of the hours I clocked up with horses I took a professional riding qualification (BHSAI) back in 1982 (just before going to university). But nowadays to escort a hack at a BHS approved riding centre - through woodland with no roads at all - I need to upgrade my knowledge with two more exams (one a tourist leisure qualification, the other on Riding and Road Safety.

It's good that riding safety is taken so seriously, but an absolute pain to have to don hard hat, tweed jacket and jods for another exam in order to be allowed out riding in the woods again.  Meanwhile, when I go to stay with friends who have ponies, sometimes I get to take my children out riding on very quiet roads and tracks (see pic of Nell bareback above borrowing Hannah's pony, George).

Me in front, Lola and Nell in Wales. Possibly like Mongolia?

It's not like that in Mongolia. There people are still brought up with horses and have what appears to be the most marvellous roaming life across the huge steepes as they search for fresh summer grazing. My friend Anna has recently been visiting and says that the closest equivalent would be to go on a riding tour across the mountains of Wales. I've had a taste of this in Powys and it really is lovely - high up, stunning long views and often across wild country. Anna recommends Equitours as the place to hire a horse and go for a long, fast, Mongolian-style trek. Actually you could fix up your own style trek across Wales as the British Horse Society has worked hard opening bridleways, see info here on riding holidays.

If actually riding a horse is too much - try the great book by Rupert Isaacson, called Horse Boy (it's a film too) which charts his family's journey to Mongolia to try and help his severely autistic son through contact with horses and life in the vast outdoor safe space of the steppes. It's a really good read.

Over to you
Where in the UK is a lovely place to go for a ride and feel as if you are far from overcrowded Britain? Or what else could I do to get a feel of Mongolian life - besides take a mini-break in a yurt (though that sounds fab)?

Oceania at Greenwich

Festival vibe: rug, snacks, anticipation.

Greenwich is a spider trap for tourists and day-trippers. But so well-deserved, and with the DLR taking you into Cutty Sark, where this famously fleet tea clipper (ship) has been quite beautifully repaired after the burning incident, Greenwich is a treat. Even more so on 21-22 July 2012 - the first weekend when the sun shone all day for what seems like months.

Best of all the BT River of Music has one of its six free stages, all along the River Thames here - which look set to entertain half a million people. The Americas and Europe stages were fully booked instantly; the Africa, Asia and Oceania were a bit slower to "sell" out. Nowadays even free concerts seem to involve buying a ticket - for a £3 booking fee.

Narasirato from Solomon Islands in London.

Tangio tumas
Show stealers for Lola and Nell's first festival were -of course - the bamboo pipe band from Solomon Islands. The group are from 'Are 'Are lagoon, a wonderful place in Malaita (it's where I learnt to speak Pijin, paddle a canoe, etc). It's also where Gary Barlow thought erroneously he was going to be eaten, but enough of that. The band, Narasirato, have two albums and a history of touring big music festivals (including New Zealand and Japan. The pan pipes are made from bamboo, it's all very traditional but the extra oomph comes from the Solomon Islanders' staggering energy on stage - they just keep on dancing; and the drums (also made from bamboo pipes but whacked with rubber similar to a flip-flop) seem to give it a rocky sound. If you missed this, you can see them at Womad 2012.

Get this party started
We heard George Telek from Papua New Guinea, then bands from Milne Bay, also PNG, the Marshall Islands, Guam, East Timor and the Aborigine musician Frank Yamma sedately from a picnic rug (the same place for New Zealand's Hollie Smith). It was like being in an issue of the world music magazine, Songlines. But when Narasirato picked up their pan pipes half the audience rushed to the front or got up and danced. It was marvellous, and later we had a quick chat with the band while they munched on chicken and chips.


Pete actually stayed on our picnic rug so watched -with some incredulity - his family at the front of the stage dancing along when focus-on-the-crazy-members-of-the-audience were flashed on to the big screens. In 2011 during our long stint in Solomon Islands I insisted we went to several hotel "tourist" dances in the hopes that we'd see the famous pan pipe entertainers. We never did - it was mostly Kiribati sashaying of the hips or Belonna stomping (although the latter was fab). As the proverb says, "good things come to those who wait". There's never any reason to rush off around the world, nearly always the world comes to you... so it was with BT's River of Music festival at the Oceania stage.

Pete and Nell try a Greenwich sofa.

Go see Greenwich
On the way home, we were distracted by more of the things Greenwich has to offer - a street market of delicious food (flat white coffee, vegetarian burgers brazenly named after their ingredients (carrot, greens), Scotch eggs served with a runny egg and a sprinkle of celery salt, at bearable prices, located just by the Old Royal Naval College. We then ate these on a vast atro-turf covered sofa surely designed to give you an Alice-in-Wonderland feel.


Over to you
Have you discovered free events thanks to the Olympics? Or has the Olympics tempted to you to find out about another country's cultural heritage? And have you seen a Gamesmaker yet in their bright purple jackets?

Journey to the end of the Nile

In Highgate Cemetery, a homage to lost explorers?

I quite like feeling slightly lost. Not lost, late, out of supplies, with malaria and without a map like the explorers desperate to track the Nile or the Congo to its source. I mean lost on a bike knowing I'm only a couple of streets off my target, but probably discovering new routes there's always the hope I'll find a quicker or more interesting journey. And now I like looking for rivers.

Not long ago I posted on my homemadekids blog the National Trust's list of 50 things you should have done before you are 12. See it here. On the list was dam a stream. Now I've done this before, and so have my kids (and we unblocked it when the game stopped, don't worry), but I've never spent that long messing around in a stream. Until today. 

Atmospheric ivy.

Knowing the long summer holidays are ahead I've been trying to do a day volunteering (rather than writing) most weeks this term - generally something that builds up my skills, like my turn on the Sunday rota at the local canoe club; or conservation tasks at an overgrown cemetery (see pix). These are about the only child-free things I do. Generally I find it means that I bring home tidbits about the big world outside, and often inspire my kids to have a go at what I'm doing too.

Here it is, the source of the Fleet cleaned up.

But today I'm back from a happy day in the woods, covered in mud, after tracking and digging out the source of the River Fleet. This is a very famous river in London - Fleet Street is where the newspapers used to all be produced.

Looking at Wikipedia I'm slightly doubtful about whether I really was looking at the Fleet or not - it definitely ends up subterranean, but the info isn't consistent. One to think about. But a good river source isn't always obvious. Take the Thames.

I asked Nell, 11,  if she remembered our efforts to find the source of the Thames in Gloucestershire in 2009. Amazingly she did. It seems to have had the same sort of memory impact as the Moon landings did for her dad. "Yes, I've found a river. I found the Thames. It didn't have water in it. It just looked like a stream, and then a small ditch but there were cows grazing by it. There was a small stone saying this is the mouth of the Thames. if I'd been there first I'd have put a really big stone and in really clear writing I'd have written 'this is where the famous river Thames starts' and then I'd put the date."

The trickle that turns into the Fleet River starts here.

In contrast I just crossed my fingers that unblocking the Fleet, so it now has a clear route between the graves, wouldn't lead to flooding downstream. Or Mr Child's grave on the right sinking into a deep Fleet pool.  

All quiet so far (nearly a week on).

I wonder if Livingstone enjoyed finding the Nile? Not quite sure at what point you celebrate these things - locating it, getting back to camp or when the general public know what's happened. I just know that I grinned the whole cycle journey home (despite being slightly lost)...

I'm hearing Russian, but who speaks it?

Anna Karenina didn't have it all.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how you can get a better sense of the vast influence of Russia here. First stop a trip to the UK's favourite store, M&S, followed by a London pub. This post is by Nicola Baird (for more info about her books see www.nicolabaird.com) 

At the start of each term I always ask my university students what languages they speak. Usually a few know Russian - and given how many countries speak Russian that should be no surprise. How many can you rack up - my list (after a bit of research) produced Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Georgia and Abkhazia.

The founder of M&S, Michael Marks, came to the UK "a penniless immigrant" from Belarus.The shop's ongoing policy to green the consumer experience, with Plan B, has seen it back FSC certification for all timber and timber products; stock fair trade items and experiment with packaging.

Notes on a scandal
I think everyone knows that Stalin came from Georgia. It's enough of an embarrassment for the country to have removed Stalin's statues in his hometown of Gori. But do you know the rumour that Stalin and Lenin first met in London (in 1905) at The Crown Tavern, Clerkenwell Green, London. It's still offering pints in a wooden panneled room, so you could try to get a sense of that historic meeting.

In the mood for Russia with lovePerhaps the best-known Russian novel is Anna Karenina (by Tolstoy), and a new film version of the book comes out in September, so I'm taking advantage of this to re-read the book. I had forgotten how fat it is, how slow the story - all meandering scenes and remarkably little plot in the first 50 pages, but so rich and enjoyable if you have the time. The film is much faster of course, and full of gorgeous dresses, see the trailer here.



Anna Karenina is a masterpiece about love and double standards. Even this tiny trailer has left me tearful - not sure how I'll last either the whole of the book - including being parted from your child - or indeed the film when it's finally released with Keira Knightley playing Anna.


Over to you
Are you a Russian fan? Is there somewhere in the world (other than the obvious) that makes you think of Russia in any of its incarnations - old imperial, communist, super-rich or anything inbetween?

Paradise for the quick and the dead

Nell used fair trade jelly beans to give her the energy to tour so many graves.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes you to Egypt, Lebanon and Victorian visions of paradise - via Highgate Cemetery. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).  


The locked black gates are finally opened a few minutes after 3pm. Just like the website they open without a creak. But the moment I pay up (£7 for an adult, £3 for a child) a rogue rain cloud drops its load into the courtyard. It's as if Highgate Cemetery (West) doesn't feel like visitors today. But then the weather changes again - brighter clouds scud past and the sun breaks through into the woodland walkways, turning even the granite and crumbling graves a sort of picturesque (if your taste is vampish).


Our guide is superb, an Archway local dressed in white - an angelic effect I'm  certain she intended. Within minutes we know that Victorian London was expanding so fast that it needed more graveyards - the result was the Magnificent Seven which ring London.  In 1839 Highgate Cemetery was opened, but you needed a lot of cash to be buried here especially if you wanted a plot by a path or a large family vault. The price didn't seem to inhibit Londoners - it's claimed there were 30 funerals a day at the purpose built chapel (Church of England to one side, dissenters (ie, anyone else) to the other). 


Our guide claimed that there are now 169,000 people buried in one of London's most desirable postcodes (NW6) in 50,000+ graves. There are just 30 plots left on this side of Swains Lane, apparently available to any of us, so long as you pay £20,000. There are more plots available on the east side though.

At the entrance of Egyptian Avenue. Anyone with a vault had their name and street they'd lived in carved on it.

How to mourn
Victorians were death experts, as well a generation might with such high infant mortality and generally shortened life-expectation. 


These graves tend to tell the story of their occupant's life. So coachman James Selby has a long whip and a horn on his stone, and adornments of inversed (ie, upside down) horseshoes. Anything inversed is a sign of death. Selby's grave was funded by his coach driving colleagues and friends. There's a pic of him here, famous because he won a £1,000 wager that he could drive from Piccadilly Circus, London to Brighton and back within eight hours. Indeed his life legend lives on that he could complete a coach and the four horses needed to pull it in just 47 seconds. Quite astonishing. I can't even get out of my office chair that fast!


Tour highlight
As you climb uphill there's a huge stone Egyptian Avenue where the super-rich buried their families in 12-people tombs. It's very Egyptian looking - lotus flowers and columns, except these are inverted. Even the keyholes are the wrong way up as a mark of respect. With the tree roots twisting up the banks and the dark overhang of heavy June-cloaked trees there is a strange impression in the graveyard of other worldliness, just like the commissioners of the Pyramids must have tried to achieve. Years ago there were 80 gardeners keeping the undergrowth neatly trim, but now a handful of volunteers manage it as a wildlife paradise - and certainly the dappled pathways attract gently flickering butterflies on their hunt for nectar.


After the Egyptian Avenue you pass the Circle of Lebanon - vaults designed to keep 18 people, although curiously none are full up - the maximum is nine family members - which completely encircles a magnificent Cedar of Lebanon tree. This is 300 plus years old, far exceeding its expected life, which is a pleasing thought in such a crowded cemetery. 

Watch this 3-minute film (click on the arrow above) with some rundown scenic shots of the cemetery before it received some tender restoration.

This is George Wimbwell's grave. He ran a travelling circus starring many animals, including the lion, Nero, above, who was good-natured enough to let children clamber on him.

Vandals in paradise
These big cemeteries became run down after World War 1 resulting in serious vandalism. In a bid to refinance the place Hammer Horror was allowed to film but that seems to have added to the kudos of getting into the graveyard and breaking off a bit of stone for your own. These vandals were clearly immune to the places' atmosphere - in the vaults which are not allowed to be filmed many coffins are piled up as if in an Ikea cupboard, their human contents now long rotted and seemingly forgotten. It's a very dark, spooky place which I hope not to have nightmares about.


That said - you must go. What's more three days later I was back inside as a volunteer working on conservation tasks. It gives you such a calm feeling - and you're never short of reading material on all those gravestones...