”Look, Daddy,” said my three-year-old son during our visit to Bodmin Jail, ”that man is ironing that lady’s hair.” He was starring at life-size models recreating the moment a certain James Holman killed his wife by striking her a blow with a smoothing iron. Holman was hanged for the crime at the jail in 1854. ”He’s straightening…
Eyebrows were raised when American superstar Britney Spears revealed she was to perform in Blackpool later this year. It’s certainly hard to imagine the (hit me) Baby One More Time singer staying in one of the popular seaside resort’s countless B&Bs. But just out of town is the North-west’s only five-star holiday village which I’m…
Britain’s 25,000 B&Bs are today (March 24) celebrating the renaissance of their £2 billion ‘’cottage industry’’. It’s the inaugural National B&B Day and the small, independent accommodation providers are uniting to mark their vital role in the UK’s cultural life, ahead of what could be a bumper summer. The concept of a reliable, comfortable place…
Sitting outside the Ty Coch Inn, drink in hand, we could see why it was voted the third best beach bar in the world in a recent survey. The taste of our specially brewed 6.5% Ty Coch cider was enhanced by the views across to the Yr Eifl mountain range and Snowdonia beyond, as the…
It was like a scene from the classic but gory animated film Watership Down… A large family of rabbits were happily hopping about and munching the grass around our holiday home when suddenly a cat appeared. The rabbits scattered into the bushes but one baby bunny was too slow and was last seen flailing in…
It might sound like the sort of place a stag party ends up at, but there’s nothing seedy about Newquay’s Lusty Glaze. In fact, as beaches go, it’s one of the classiest; where the ‘fashionable’ might go to top up their tans while sipping on a Mai Tai. And, I’m sad to report, nobody’s eyes…
The thousands of families who holiday each year at Cornwall’s Perran Sands resort probably don’t realise their caravans stand next to one of Britain’s earliest places of Christian worship. Back in the sixth century, so the story goes, tribal kings in Ireland grew afraid of the power and influence of a holy man named Piran (or Perran), who…
World record holder Jonathan Edwards could have almost hopped, skipped and jumped from our holiday home to the beach. I reckon Usain Bolt could have sprinted to the golden sands in about four seconds, the 90 degree left turn slowing him down somewhat. And it would have taken the sprinter only slightly longer to have…
Our Devon break wasn’t so much a home from home as a gnome from gnome. We had the company of more than 2,000 of the little fellas at the Gnome Reserve in a four-acre garden in the village of West Putford. The wacky family attraction, established in 1979, is the largest of its kind and…
New Year, in the eyes of many, is a time to dig out the tracksuit and work off those Christmas calories. But this Scrooge-like tradition is not one I adhere to. I much prefer to keep the festive chocs coming and the booze flowing for as long as possible. Which is why the offer of…
Holidaying Hack 