The soundtrack to my whistle-stop trip to Dubai was the annoyingly catchy Everything Is Awesome from The Lego Movie. I couldn’t get the tune out of my head because from the moment I boarded the plane to when I returned to Blighty everything was, well, you know, AWESOME! And here are some of the reasons…
Kew Gardens is so vast that it’s difficult to see everything in one visit. You really need to get there for when the gates open at 10am, but getting to the capital that early is never easy, especially with kids in tow. So why not make a weekend of it by staying nearby on a…
EGGS & soldiers have been a favourite lunch time snack of mine for as long as I can remember, but until recently I had never been tempted to have it for pudding. Curiosity got the better of me when I noticed it on the dessert menu at the Pickled Hen restaurant in London, and two…
For a truly Shrek-tacular Christmas there really is only one place to go this year. Liverpool has become the first UK city to host DreamWorks Lights, a Chinese lantern attraction featuring much-loved characters from the blockbuster animated films Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar. There are around 100 lanterns on display and our two youngsters,…
We awoke to views of a marina filled with speedboats and some very expensive yachts. Then, after breakfast in a dining room that overlooked a landscaped garden with palm trees, we stepped straight on to miles of golden sands. Sounds like we were staying at some boutique hotel in the Med, except that the sea…
It’s Shakespeare this and Shakespeare that in Stratford-upon-Avon, the Bard’s birthplace. The Warwickshire town, quite rightly, trades heavily on its literary links and attracts millions of visitors from across the world. But what can Stratford offer a family with children not yet old enough to read Peter and Jane, let alone Romeo and Juliet? Well,…
The helicopter was taking off not 50 metres from the window of our hotel room. Yet, such was the quality of the floor to ceiling triple-glazing, we could hardly hear the whirling of its blades. My wife and I had come to expect nothing less during our weekend at the new Hotel Verta in Battersea,…
You know the scene, it’s Friday afternoon and friends at work start asking what you’ve got planned for the weekend. ‘’I’m off to Basingstoke,’’ I excitedly revealed. Eyebrows were raised. Basingstoke? Really? Why? Was I visiting relatives? Did I have a wedding to attend? Had I simply lost my marbles? The north Hampshire town, I…
We’d stayed in an apartment with a lovely sea view and we’d stayed in an apartment with a cosy log fire. But until recently, my wife and I had never stayed in an apartment built on the orders of the Pope on the very spot where a bona fide miracle had taken place. The apartment,…
With just months until my 40th birthday, I was on the look-out for a good midlife crisis to strike fear into my wife. Should I buy a sports car? No, I haven’t the money. Should I take up an extreme sport? No, I haven’t the bottle. Should I have an affair with a much younger…
