If you're a campsite person, you'll have had the conversation; the one where you chat with the people in the mobile home across the way about which campsites you've been to and which ones they've been to, and which ones were great and which ones were awful. Who you stayed with, the size of the pools, and ...
We spent our first wedding anniversary wandering around Rome, eating pasta and drinking wine, and asking strangers to take our pictures in pre-selfie, pre-smart-phone days. We spent our second wedding anniversary sitting in Shanahan's, eating steak and drinking wine, and praying we hadn't forgotten to bring our voucher. Our third anniversary was different - it was the ...
Sitting on the deck at half past midnight, I can hear Killing Me Softly wafting across the campsite, to the background sound of waves washing up on the sand. I’m finishing a glass of red wine and thinking about closing my book. The candle flickers in the darkness, and I don’t want to blow it ...
Eight years ago, I went along to the Saturday Night Show in RTÉ, and came away with a one-for-everybody-in-the-audience night in a hotel. So we duly booked our night, and headed off to Clane with our then seven-month-old. We weren't quite sure how staying in hotels with babies worked, but everyone else seemed to do ...
I have a child who is not great with change. When our old car shuddered to a halt and died last year, and we replaced it with a shiny new one, she wrote a note that said "I hate the new car" and left it on the kitchen table. When our Sky box was replaced, ...
Two things we didn't consider when we booked our holiday this year: 1. Italy can be very hot in July (subsequent raised eyebrows and "Italy in July? With small kids? Really?" comments did hammer this home) 2. Our campsite, Norcenni Girasole, is inland - way inland - sitting prettily in the hills of Tuscany but nowhere near even a ...
A very nice thing about blogging is being offered products to review. The hard part is deciding whether to say yes or not, but when Claire Povey asked if I'd like to try one of her hand-made beach bags, one click through to her website was enough to convince me to send back a resounding "Yes ...
Medicine and the internet – they haven’t always been the most comfortable of bedfellows. I can’t be the only one who has googled a mild headache and come away thinking I’m going to die within the hour? And I remember when my first baby was tiny, and breastfeeding was hit and miss to begin with, I ...
Recently, I asked my seven-year-old if she remembered Sequoia Parc, the campsite we stayed in, two years ago in France. "Of course I do - it had a dragon pirate ship thing beside the pool," she said. "No," I said, "That was Clarys Plage, last year." She was sure I was wrong. I was sure I was right. ...
A package arrived. Excitement was high. One child almost fainted, such was her need to see what was in the big cardboard box. "Relax," I said, "It's probably something boring for dad, or for me." Secretly hoping it was for me. I opened the box. Four heads peered in. "It's a bag!" one child shouted. "It's pink!" said ...