Other Places I have visited this year so far.

 Now that I have the school holidays off I am determined to see more of the country and the attractions that interest me which may not appeal to the rest of the family.

As a family we have been members of the National Trust for many years and now the children are adults my membership has changed to just Craig and I. We do try to visit a few properties each year. Over Easter I finally got to visit Quarry Bank Mill in Styal near Manchester airport. It is not one large property it is a mill, an apprentice house, the owners house and gardens and the village. The tours of the apprentice house and village have to be booked on a timed tour as they are guided. I booked for the apprentice house and learnt a lot about the life the children would have had. In some ways they were very well looked after compared to the workhouse or other mills. I have to admit, anything to do with industry does not appeal to me, I prefer seeing how people lived rather than worked so I didn’t really spend time in the mill. The owners house was a bit disappointing as you only saw a few rooms downstairs. The gardens were lovely and the location would have been a lot more desirable a place to work than the centre of the towns.

The other National Trust property visited was Tatton Park. A word of warning here though. Although the property is managed by the National Trust, it is owned by Cheshire Council who are currently charging £9.50 per car just to park.

I have been to Tatton Park a number of times before for events but never to really go into the house or gardens. This time I did. The house is impressive and it is one of the few places that gives you an insight into the life of the servants and you get to see the kitchens.

As Penny was not with us we went into the gardens which I haven’t been into since I was a child. I can imagine that in the height of summer when everything is in full bloom they are stunning but it was a little early for the flowers to be blooming. The Japanese garden was eye catching and felt very peaceful.

There was a Shaun the Sheep trail for the children with various designs dotted around the park. This was my favourite design.

As it was just Craig and I we went into the ‘Gardener’s Cottage’ for a drink and a slice of cake. The picture here does not really do justice to how pretty it really is. Unfortunately, the weather was not favourable enough to sit outside,

As mentioned earlier, I like learning how people lived in the past. Living museums are fantastic places to get insights into so I visited Blists Hill Victorian Town near Telford in Shropshire.

I loved seeing all the shops and what they sold. It certainly makes you realise how lucky we are nowadays to be able to have so much choice compared to then. I am also grateful for all the things we have nowadays that make our lives more convenient and easier. There are aspects that I wish we still had, such as the sense of community and having local shops to buy fresh things from on a seasonal basis and less choice.

I enjoyed looking at the homes they had and speaking to the people who were there and giving you information as to the types of people who lived there and the types of lives they had.

It is somewhere I will definitely be going back to later this year to see how it looks in a different season and hopefully better weather. Maybe I could persuade Craig or Emma to come along as well. I know Matthew will not be interested.

Finally, on a glorious Sunday of the May bank holiday, Craig and I went to Eden Camp which is a World War Two museum created in an actual Prisoner of War camp. It is near Malton in Yorkshire. I have been before accompanying a school trip and we have passed it every time we went to Whitby. The museum exhibits are housed in actual prisoner of war huts arranged by events or to give you an overview of what life was like for ordinary people, soldiers or prisoners of war.

Again I was only interested in the huts that showed what everyday life was like and although I went through most of the huts, I definitely spent less time in the huts that covered the battles. There was also a lot of information on the boards and it meant that there were hold-ups getting into some of the huts due to people wanting to read the information. Taking pictures in most of the huts was not going to be easy as they were quite dark inside so I did not bother.

Although the visit had interesting elements, I am not planning on going back any time in the near future. Probably only if I have to accompany a school trip which is unlikely as it is a little to far for the school I am working in to go.

Estepona Holiday

 During the February half term holiday we were fortunate enough to be able to take our nephew over to Estepona, near Marbella, Spain to see his Dad and spend the week there. As someone who does not do well with heat this was the perfect time for me to go as the temperature was low 20’s. It did feel strange waking up in the mornings to sun and warmth though.

We have never visited that part of Spain before and it was beautiful. Estepona is known as the Garden of the Costa del Sol and it was easy to see why. Even in February there was plenty of greenery and some flowers. Some of the streets in the old town were lined with orange trees which were full of  oranges and there were flowerbeds in the main street as well. There is also an Orchidarium in the centre of town which had some beautiful orchids growing.

As well as the flowers there is also a Mural trail you can follow. The town has allowed local artists to paint murals on the walls of buildings and there were some fantastic displays around the town. There is a map you can get which tells you where they are. It is continually being added to and at the time we went there were 62 murals to see.

As we had hired a car we decided to do a bit of sightseeing in other areas nearby. The first place we went to was Puerto Banus. We really only looked around the port area and there were some fantastic and very expensive yachts and the shops reflected that. I fell in love with a pair of Gucci sandals which I estimated laughably to be about £400 (you can tell I don’t do designer). They were in fact £750. Needless to say I didn’t get them.

I did enjoy a rather yummy cocktail in a boat shaped bar with a rather interesting design in the ladies bathroom though.

We saw some more yachts (but a little less grand) at Sotogrande where we experienced a bit of rain, which I found most welcome, to break up the monotony the daily sunshine. It was very quiet and so we only spent a couple of hours there as most places were closed as it was too early in the year. Matthew and our nephew enjoyed a rather large pancake each as they had missed out on Pancake Day a couple of days before.

Our favourite day was the Friday when we went to Selwo Aventura which was a zoo about half an hours drive away. It was my favourite as they had the most active Red Panda’s I had ever seen. I could have spent all day just watching them. It was a lot bigger than we anticipated as we ended up spending most of the day there and did lots of walking. I also loved the lemurs who all looked like they were meditating in the sun.

On our last day we went to Malaga as that was where we were flying home from. We had intended on visiting  the car and fashion museum but we had not allowed for the siesta closing times and we literally turned up as it closed. We took a walk along the promenade before going to Plaza Mayor which is a MacArthur Glen Designer village which was huge. We had called in to get something to eat when  we arrived on the first evening but we had not seen how big it actually was as we did not really explore due to the shops being closed and only the food outlets being open. If we go back then I will certainly plan on spending some more time (and money) there as well as in Malaga itself as we did not have the time to explore the town.

We hope that we can go back to Estepona as we really enjoyed it, especially in February. We would have liked to have gone over at Easter but the cost was triple what we paid in February which is absolutely ridiculous for exactly the same place, using the same airline just at a more popular time of year for holidays. That is the only problem with being restricted to school holidays. Something needs to be done to even things out in terms of cost so that maybe more parents could afford to go abroad and adults who work in schools who cannot take any other time off are not penalised as well.

Quick Update

I am writing to give you a quick update os to why I have not been doing any posting despite saying I would at the beginning of the year.

The fact of the matter is I have been struggling with perimenopause. I have been fortunate in the fact that I have not been experiencing the physical symptoms such as hot flushes, dryness or insomnia, mine have been more the mental issues of low mood, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed as well as my biggest issue of feeling like I cannot be bothered doing anything. 

I am not looking for sympathy I am just explaining why I have been and probably will continue to be rather erratic at posting. It is something every woman will experience and will have their own ways of dealing with it and I am dealing with it as best as I can. 

I will post when I feel like it as during the school holidays I am trying to go out to visit different places and I will try and write about them but there will not be regular posts such as menu plans or daily photos as I know that at the moment I cannot be consistent with doing those every week.

Thank you for your patience.

Deborah