The joy of Essex

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Take a mini break to Colchester for culture, oysters, history and views that are often Italinate (even in a damp mid-winter). This post is by Nicola Baird 

Colchester is a market town with a big history. As Camulodunum (translation - fortress of Camulos [a Celtic god of war]) it was once the capital of Britain. It was a vast Roman colony and even now the materials used in the Norman castle give you the impression you are mid Mediterranean, maybe Florence with the warm terracotta tiles on the castle's narrow bricked towers and the strange white elephant watertower, known locally as Jumbo. It's the history that is exciting though: it was viciously destroyed by Boudica and her Celtic allies (who also destroyed London and St Albans); fought over in the Civil War, and has more traditions about oysters than you can serve up with Lee and Perrins....

Despite all these stories it’s not a traditional place to head for a wedding anniversary weekend. Strange because it surely compares with Lille or Bath or Winchester. Indeed the staggered reaction from a friend who used to live there, and my aunt who is based in Essex - but does her best to avoid Colchester - suggested I might regret letting Pete pick the venue. But that's the point of Aroundbritainnoplane, getting to know the UK better.

Turns out that Colchester offers an astonishing history trail (and thanks to the choice of B&B and restaurant Pete and I had a lot of fun too). The Norman castle is the biggest in Britain - because it was built on foundations made by the Romans. The foundations are 3,000 years old, and when the Normans arrived these were already 1,000 years old. When I think about the subsidence in the two Victorian homes I’ve lived in this seems puzzlingly brilliant engineering.

We took a taxi from the station to Trinity Street where we were staying in a house once owned by John Wilbye, the man who invented madrigals in the late 16th century. I always ask taxi drivers the three best things about the place where they work, often with interesting results. The woman we’d picked was an utter down.”There’s nothing good here. It’s just cold. There’s shopping, but I don’t like that, except in Williams & Griffin (a department store run by Fenwick).” When pushed she admitted there were some pubs, but these were occupied by squaddies and students so we wouldn’t want to go there… Well we did, the Purple Dog was fine, and most pubs seem to offer real ale.

Within 100 metres of exiting the taxi – she couldn’t drive to the front door because of the excellent pedestrianised shopping lanes (sort of like Brighton) off the High Street a lady in Tudor garments had invited us to watch a Tudor dance being performed in the CO1 community centre run by a charity that finds things for teenagers to do. Irresistible, and though Tudor dances are reasonably staid, it was fun watching a performance of Ding Dong Merrily on High (originally a dance) and the anachronistic doubletake of spotting a Tudor dancer sit out with mobile and a mug of latte. Could spots like this have inspired Damon Albarn from Blur?

Top 5 highlights of Colchester (other than the zoo)

1. Colchester Castle – stunning Roman collection which is labelled for maximum enjoyment for anyone who knows Essex or interested in Boudica. It costs £6 to enter but offers at least an hour of displays. You can also book a £2.50 tour of the Roman foundations of the Temple of Claudius which Boudica destroyed (along with 20,000 people) and go on to the castle ramparts for a 360 degree view across today's town. 
2. FREE A walk that takes in the old Roman wall by the Hole in the Wall pub and a vast red-brick retired Victorian water tower known as Jumbo. Then head the other way and find the Old Seige House which looks Tudor but has many red painted bullet marks on its inside and outside walls – marks from the conflict between Cromwell’s troops and the Royalists. Finish off with a patrol of the incredible new arts centre, Firstsite. In fact Firstsite might be a reason to go to Colchester - it's as good as The Baltic up in Newcastle upon Tyne.
3. There are some nice parks, including the castle gardens which also has the FREE toy museum beside it, all a few strides from the shopping streets. Look carefully between and in stores and you’ll see Roman memories everywhere. We ate a good dinner (with frighteningly speedy service) at the Lemon Tree which boasts a massive Roman wall between the dining rooms.
4. A place to get curious about: allegedly Humpty Dumpty was a canon parked at St Mary in the Wall during the Civil War conflict (find it near the Mercury theatre). And there's the Dutch Quarter where in 1806 Jane Taylor is claimed to have dreamt up Twinkle Twinkle Little Star... and it's old name, Camulodunum may have been the basis for the nursery rhyme Old King Cole. As for the TOWIE craze back in Brentwood (and the nation's sitting rooms), well I could see no evidence other than a canvas tote in a super tacky shop that boasted "I've been vajazzled".
5. Pick the right Sunday in December (11 Dec 2011) and then you can enjoy the Christmas market which has the high street closed to traffic. 

More info about things to do in Colchester here. More info about Colchester at wikipedia here (including references in two Dr Who episodes, Moll Flanders and 1984!)

Lisbon 1 Durban 0

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here is a short news report on which gets more news coverage: the ministers meeting at Durban (on climate) or squabbling over the Lisbon Treaty (money). This post is by Nicola Baird 

I've been a poor sleeper for years, ever since I had children really. So this morning about 6am - after finishing the novel I was reading and messing on Facebook - I started looking on the web for info about the COP17 talks at Durban. These are important climate talks, not unlike the ones that hogged the world's attention when they were in Copenhagen. There is so little to find, although I did uncover a shocking post from Reuters about how the failure of these talks looks set to drown island states, with first on the list being Tokelau. In contrast the meltdown of the Eurozone (thanks again Cameron for messing things up) had headline after headline. 

In a contest of Durban v Lisbon, the latter is clearly the outright winner. Money drives news agenda a zillion times over attempts to save the world.

And yet there is some good news around. For instance I found this news item below on the ecogeek website. It's from the LA Times. I think it is good news that investments in renewable energy topped fossil fuels last year - although as the UK isn't exactly doing this, who on earth is? There's another glitch: the enormous sum of $157 billion was also invested in new natural gas, oil and coal plants - the fossil fuels that are causing climate change... 

Really you couldn't make this skewed understanding up - as I read in Rosamund Urwin's Evening Standard column yesterday we'd rather see our great grandchildren swim to school than pay just a tad more tax to try and tackle the problems of climate change now, when we actually still might be able to do something.

Investments in Renewable Energy Topped Fossil Fuels Last YearWritten by Megan Treacy on 29/11/11 For the first time, investments in renewable energy projects surpassed those in fossil fuel power plants, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.  Last year, $187 billion was invested in renewable energy installations, while $157 billion was invested in new natural gas, oil and coal plants. The increase in investments in the sector, even while in a down economy, has led to price drops in equipment and renewable energy power, making solar and wind power far more competitive with coal power. Renewable energy subsidies deserve a lot of credit for the spending increase:  about $66 billion in subsidies were handed out last year. It's a great bit of news as another round of global talks on the climate crisis is likely heading nowhere as we speak. via LA Times

Bumped into Sengal this morning

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here is a surprising idea about how to find Senegal much closer to home. This post is by Nicola Baird 

All I did was take the dog on a slightly different morning route march. Amazing variety of posters up at Arsenal stadium. Special praise to anyone who knows which Gunners player this quote refers to. Strangely I posted this piece on the same day that the Guardian revealed that Youssou N'Dour plans to give up music and possibly run for president.

On a tour of 3D Africa

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here are some ideas about how to get that bit closer to every country in Africa (and maybe create your own). This post is by Nicola Baird 


As part of Black History Month 2011 the older children at Nell's school created a 3D map of Africa. Nell was in charge of Mali and it looks fab, she created a wonderful mosque too. When all the countries were put together (there are 52) it turned out that Nigeria had been forgotten. What an embarrassment, so Nigeria was quickly produced. Above is a picture of the children's efforts with Nell and Netta posing.

Mapping your world
There's a great idea in the brilliant Mission: Explore book that shows kids how to establish your own country. You've just got to map it, name it, establish the boundaries, sort out a flag and register it with the United Nations. Hard to believe it is that simple - but turns out that Pete (my partner/nell's dad) has long ago done that when he declared Essex an independent nation. The main demands included serving Tiptree jam at state occasions; plus all music to be provided by Ian Dury or Billy Bragg (for more Essex sillyness have a look at Pete's blog, http://thejoyofessex.blogspot.com).

Over to you
I'm curious - has anyone else created their own universe/country/breakaway state with their kids or friends? BTW, I'm not talking about real independence here, just pretend. Do share

Ready to ski?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here are some ideas about how to offer a winter sports experience - like you might have in Austria - but much closer to home. This post is by Nicola Baird 

From late October, each week another Austrian ski resort opens up again after the long summer break. A good place to find out more is at this blog here. I've never skiied on snow, and only tried an artificial slope once, I think in Harrogate although xscape at Milton Keynes is far more famous, and there's the Chill Factor at Trafford with a luge run and the Snow Centre in St Albans, just 10 minutes from the train station. But last weekend on a brainstorm with the Geography Collective (working on their next Mission Explore book challenge) one of the bonding activities was to toboggan at the Chatham Ski Slope (apparently the longest artificial slope in Kent and the South East).

It seemed a shame to let the kids miss out this early winter sport pleasure so when I left the geographers, I took Lola, Nell and their friend Xander to Broadgate ice rink, just by Liverpool Street in the centre of London for a long skate on a chilly, blue-sky morning with near perfect mountain conditions (!). As you can see from their expressions, they loved it - as did Xander's mum Nicky. And you can try skating too from November - early February.

Obviously if we were thinking Austrian we'd finish off our skating or tobogganing with hot chocolate and cakes. Instead we ate noodles at Spitalfields market, but I guess when you are on a skiiing holiday, you never really know what you might do next...

Over to you
Where do you go in the UK to recreate a winter sports feeling? I'd love to try to ski my way around the UK using the artificial slopes...

Running out of loo roll

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here are some thoughts about taking the piss, politely. This post is by Nicola Baird 

It may be possible to use leaves, newspaper scraps and bits of magazines to wipe your bum. But... I'm not keen on these options while recycled loo paper is so cheap and easy to come by (unless you forget to keep the stocks up). The obvious answer is to make sure you always have a couple of slices of toilet tissue tucked into a pocket.

British people are often very conservative about their toilet habits. I remember being amazed at about eight years old that there were squat toilets in France. Since then I've learnt that many countries use squat toilets - in some rows of "ladies" in Singapore, say, you can choose between the Western sit model and the Asian squat.

That flush costs how much?
Our family is just about to switch to a water metre in a bid to help everyone in the house understand that water has a price. It's easy to follow Ozzie rules - "if it's yellow let it mellow; if it's brown flush it down," when it's only family in the house. Far harder when there are visitors. At least that's what I think, anyone got any thoughts about how to internationalise your own toilet habits so water isn't wasted and blushes spared?

Here be dragons (aka griffins)

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to find fantasy beasts via a trip through London. This post is by Nicola Baird 


I love visting the City's griffins. The picture above looks rather like a sacrifice, although it really shows Nell trying to climb on to one of the City's guardians between Temple and Blackfriars tube. Using the old I-spy game a griffin deserves at least 10 points (a pigeon would be 2, a cathedral 6), and there are plenty of griffins to find in the Square Mile, so a good way of exploring London as you look around the protest site at St Pauls.

Griffin ID please
Look for the body of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle and furry horse ears & what do you see? Scales. Clearly the griffins guarding the City are actually dragons. I doubt such a mish-mash beastie could ever have been real - although the Greeks and ancient Egyptians made statues of them. As for dragons, I've always assumed they are a folk lore memory of dinosaurs (or at any rate dino bones).

More info about Griffins on Wikipedia here. And if you want to remind yourself about I-spy books, then look here.

If it's London dragons you want though, then go to the National Gallery and enjoy Uccello's St George and the Dragon - a slaying of what appears to be the lady in pink's pet.