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What's this blog all about?

Hi, I'm Nicola - welcome to a blog begun in 2012 about family travel around the world, without leaving the UK.

I love travel adventures, but to save cash and keep my family's carbon footprint lower, I dreamt up a unique stay-at-home travel experience. So far I've visited 110 countries... without leaving the UK. Join me exploring the next 86! Or have a look at the "countries" you can discover within the UK by scrolling the labels (below right). Here's to happy travel from our doorsteps.

Around 2018 I tried a new way of writing my family's and my own UK travel adventures. Britain is a brilliant place for a staycation, mini-break and day trips. It's also a fantastic place to explore so I've begun to write up reports of places that are easy to reach by public transport. And when they are not that easy to reach I'll offer some tips on how to get there.

See www.nicolabaird.com for info about the seven books I've written, a link to my other blog on thrifty, creative childcare (homemadekids.wordpress.com) or to contact me.

Monday, 28 May 2007

Playing detective


Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of loads of countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola.

Last week Trafalgar Square was grassed over for two days. Sadly Lola, Nell and I didn't get a chance to view and picnic on the new green park below Nelson's Column as the lawn had already been rolled up and taken off to spruce up another London park a few hours before we arrived.

We were certain that the grass had been there because instead of sulking (tempting!) we played detectives, looking for mud and green bits on the grey paving stones. The photo is of the one grass blade that we found after a 10 minute search - a ridiculously happy discovery. Despite the girls insistance on picking up stuff and taking it home in their pockets (eg, rubber bands, flower petals, hair decorations etc) we left that lonely blade there - so you too might be able to play Detective Grass. I tried to console myself with the idea that London offers layers and layers of history, so it's really not that long ago that Traffic Square, as Trafalgar Square is still sometimes known despite all the Mayor's improvements, used to be a field. We missed that too.

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