Category Archives: Sophie is travelling

Somersaulting into summer

Continuing this summer’s emerging theme of music and partying and tents we have just had another fantastic weekend of very little internet – this time at the sensational Somersault Festival in North Devon.

We arrived on Thursday morning and set up camp with two other families – it was hard to tell who was more excited as the anticipation began to build, but kids and adults alike were determined to have a good time. It wasn’t hard.

Our little camp was a brilliant base for the weekend’s festivities. There were bubbles and body painting, duck baths and duelling ukeleles.

Arthur loved being able to roll out of bed in his pyjamas and get straight into a new day’s play. He’s becoming quite the seasoned little camper with all our adventures, and certainly seemed to sleep well in the tent with all the fresh air and excitement.

He loved exploring the festival site too – whether he was running around or cozied up in the sling, checking out the stalls or making new friends.

We were all super impressed with the kids’ area. I’ve always been curious about what goes on, slightly jealous of the glitter and magic and games in the children’s fields of festivals I’ve gone to in the past. This time though I had a child of my own to take me there, and it didn’t disappoint.

Arthur was particularly fond of frolicking with the fairies, and though I didn’t keep him still for long enough to do any crafts there was a great selection of different things to make – from a stunning array of masks to wings, wands and hula hoops.

The bigger kids we were with even made bath bombs – then had the genius idea of using them back at camp to soothe their tired feet as they prepared for an evening of dancing. I will definitely be getting Arthur onto that when he’s a bit older – though I will have to appoint myself chief tester…

One thing we certainly didn’t expect is just how HOT the weekend was going to be! We had a couple of showers, but nothing like the torrential downpours the Met office had been promising. Lots of people took the opportunity to cool off in the river – a pretty cool feature to have in the middle of a festival, though I’m glad no-one took an unintentional dip in the middle of the night!

We were sorely tempted to join them, but instead decided to head to the beach on Saturday afternoon. The sea was heavenly, and it was all we could do to tear Arthur away from running on the sand and splashing in the waves. I’ve never actually been to the North Devon coast before. It was pretty stunning – we’re already planning our next trip!

With the myriad of different things to do it was easy to almost forget we’d actually come for the music. The line-up was eclectic and exciting, a perfect blend of bands I know well and was looking forward to seeing again and people I hadn’t heard but wanted to! Arthur absolutely loved the music – whether he was chilling out in the afternoon sun at the Communion stage, jigging around in the sling to Jack Johnson or dancing to Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars with a huge grin on his face.

We weren’t able to get that close to the stage, mainly because Arthur has decided he won’t wear his ear defenders any more – they were awesome last summer when he was still tiny, but now that he’s a bit older I think we’re going to need to work on getting him used to them! The distance didn’t matter too much though – especially once Arthur was up on his Daddy’s shoulders so he could see what was going on.

I think he found the live music really inspiring, and it’s inspired me again to find more gigs to take him to. Festivals are brilliant for introducing kids to the sheer joy of live music – especially one that’s so completely family friendly as Somersault. It’s brilliant as a parent too to be able to do the things that are not so easy with a kid in tow – and to know that they’re enjoying it too rather than being stuck at home.

As the sun went down I was very glad to have a baby that still loves to be worn – he snuggled up in the Connecta where he was warm and safe, nodding off not that much later than his usual bedtime. Which meant I could stay up and enjoy the rest of the acts!

Ben Howard was superb on the Sunday night. I really love the new edgier direction his music seems to be taking, though it was great to hear the crowd singing along to the old favourites too.

My absolute musical highlight of the weekend was definitely Bear’s Den though. They played a fantastic set late on Sunday night on the Communion stage, with haunting melodies and infectious rhythms carried along by the banter of the band.

Even with such a packed weekend I still left feeling like there was so much we didn’t see or do or hear – which is a very good reason to go back next year. I think Arthur’s just going to love festivals more and more as he grows up. He was looking a little forlorn as we packed away the tents, and rocking his ukelele with renewed vigour even as we were trying to pack him into the car to make our way home.

J is for journey

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I love to travel. Partly, of course, it’s about exploring new places: the sights, the smells, the buzz of being somewhere different. But to borrow from a cliche the journey itself is at least as important as the destination.

I like to travel slowly when I can: on foot, by train, by boat. Anything that will let me appreciate the landscapes that I’m passing through, that will give me a sense of distance and time.

The moment above was captured by Leigh in the middle of our first big adventure as a family, and actually in the middle of a journey within a journey – one of many on that trip.

We were in New York, and left our hotel in the meatpacking district in the morning with a vague idea that we would walk to the children’s museum in Brooklyn. It looked a fairly long way on the map, but we figured we weren’t in any rush. And a good thing too – in between getting lost and voluntarily taking scenic detours we were on our feet for about eight hours. Most of that time we weren’t anywhere particularly significant, but that really didn’t matter. We made it to the museum, giving Arthur a baby-friendly pitstop where he actually crawled for the first time. The rest of the time he was in the sling, sleeping or feeding or just looking around.

It’s always hard with cities to know how to get the measure of them, but I’ve found that just wandering is a pretty good way to start.

There’s a lesson for life in there somewhere too I reckon. Not to stay still for too long, to keep meandering, even if you feel aimless, because only then do you stand a chance of coming across the thing that will give you direction. To appreciate what you find along the way, too – not just focus blindly on your destination, on the things you think you’re going to find, because it’s often in the unexpected that the magic lies.

J is for journey.

Joining in with The Alphabet Photography Project over at PODcast.

London Fields

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Before we moved to Devon, I’d been in London for sixteen years. I lived, worked and studied all over the city, but it was when I moved to Hackney that I knew I’d found my London: the place in that sprawling metropolis that felt like home.

We still have a flat in London Fields – one of my best friends lives there now, but it’s been ages since we’ve made it over to that part of town. So as part of our adventures last weekend we thought we’d go back to our old manor to take a stroll.

We wandered through the park, down Broadway Market towards the canal. As an area it’s constantly changing – it has been for as long as I’ve known it – but its spirit remains the same. A vibrant mix of people and cultures, quirky shops and friendly bars, street art and ice cream vans and bicycles and community cricket.

I know there are plenty of people who turn their noses up at its gentrification or self-conscious variety of cool, but there’s something about Hackney that has got under my skin. It was great to be back, to introduce Arthur to the world we were a part of before he came along. It was almost enough to make me want to move back to London. Almost.

Word of the Week: Transport

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Today the word that sums up the week that was is:

This week we travelled to London and back, and went all over the city in between. In doing so we might have broken records, I think, for the amount of different types of transport we used!

We started early on Saturday morning on the train to London, a little bit sleepy but invigorated by the view and our breakfast picnic.

Most of the weekend was spent traversing the city by tube and bus, and on Sunday afternoon Arthur went on a miniature train on a ride in Hyde Park: I wasn’t sure what he’d make of it at first but his big cousin Ilya looked after him!

Then on Monday we set off for a bit of an adventure. We took the tube across to Bank, then hopped on the DLR out to the Docklands. Arthur loved looking at all the tall buildings and even got to help drive the train.

Then the highlight of the journey: we took a cable car across the river! The views were amazing, and Arthur couldn’t decide whether we were in an aeroplane or a helicopter.

We stopped off for lunch by the MIllenium Dome, then caught a river boat back into town.

Arthur was pretty sleepy by this point, so was happy to lie back and look at the view while he had a bit of a feed.

The next day it was time to head home, so it was back on the big train for the journey back to Brixham. We were all very pleased to see the sea: London was lovely, but it’s just not Devon!

Since we’ve been back Arthur has been making choo choo noises, looking out for helicopters and aeroplanes overhead and loving playing with the ride-on car he got for Christmas.

He was particularly excited at his Music with Mummy session yesterday morning: as it happens the theme this term is transport, and with everything he’s experienced this week it suddenly all seemed to make a lot more sense…

A Big Easy Adventure

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As we’re beginning to look forward to our adventures this summer I’ve found myself reminiscing about everything we got up to last year – our first summer as a family. The flip side of all the hard work Leigh is slogging through in term time as he trains to be a doctor is that he gets some pretty awesome holidays. We’re under no illusion how tough things are going to be in the first few years after he actually qualifies, but for now we’re determined to make the most of it.

We spent lots of last summer in the UK enjoying the incredible weather, but in the middle of it all we took a trip to the US and Canada – and it’s not one I’m going to forget in a hurry!

It all started when we were watching Big Easy Express for the umpteenth time. Of all the adventures my brother has had since his career in music has taken off, this was the one I most wish I could have been a part of: a vintage train full of extremely talented musicians travelling through the US countryside stopping off to play gigs along the way. When their plans for last summer started to come together – a series of Gentlemen of the Road festivals in out-of-the-way locations across the pond, with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show along for the ride again too – I began to think that just maybe this was our opportunity to get a taste of that adventure.

Fast forward a few months and we were off: flying to New York with tickets booked to take us by train to Halifax in Nova Scotia, stopping off at Simcoe, Ontario on the way for a weekend of music and festival fun.

We were in New York for a week, spending some of it catching up with Ben and Jemima who had moved out there at the beginning of the year and the rest seeing the sights and soaking up the rhythm of the city. Arthur was quite happy to hang out in the sling, looking around or dozing as we explored. We barely scratched the surface really of what New York has to offer, but there was certainly plenty to keep us entertained!

From New York we got the Maple Leaf train to Toronto: it was a twelve hour journey but actually went way quicker than we expected.

Arthur was excited to be doing something new and different, and stunning views kept us all entertained.

The most tedious bit was at the Canadian border when we had to get off the train with baby and luggage in hand and walk through customs only to get back on the same train an hour or so later!

Toronto was awesome. Smaller and more manageable than New York, but still lots to see. The CN Tower was particularly impressive: both from the ground looking up and the spectacular view from the top.

We had friends to catch up with when we got there too. Arthur’s Oddmother, though she lives in London, was in a nearby town visiting her family, and a mutual friend of ours had recently moved back to her hometown nearby. It was great to see them both on their home turf – and Arthur loved the opportunity we had for a bit of lake swimming too…

Then a few days later we were off to Simcoe. We rented a car, picked up my brother Greg and his wife on our way – they’d flown in for a long weekend – and headed out to the countryside. The festival had completely taken over the town – it was pretty surreal to see images of Ben everywhere, but brilliant how completely the locals had embraced their British visitors.

The music was of course the highlight of the weekend, and we found some pretty fantastic vantage points where we could watch and listen without getting caught up in the crowds. Arthur was fascinated by the bits he was awake for – but also showed a remarkable ability to sleep when he needed to, whatever else was going on around him!

Then it was back to Toronto ready for the longest journey of the trip: thirty hours on a train to get to Halifax where Leigh’s extended family live. This was actually the bit I’d most been looking forward to, but as the dream became a reality I did start to get a little nervous about what our increasingly mobile baby would make of it all…

Turns out I need not have worried. Our cabin was cosy, but Arthur was happy to snuggle up with me in a bunk (I did put him next to the wall when we actually went to sleep!)

We spent a lot of our time in the vintage observation carriage – just like the one in the film! We got chatting to the host there and said we’d been inspired to make the trip after my brother and his band did some gigs on a train. He was very excited to hear which band we were talking about and said he often held screenings of Big Easy Express which was one of his favourite films. Arthur of course had no idea about any of that but certainly seemed to enjoy being on the train whilst the world sped by outside the windows.

When we finally got to Halifax it was brilliant to catch up with Leigh’s family and to introduce Arthur to them for the first time – especially his Great Grandad.

All in all it was a wonderful adventure, full of friends, family and new experiences for all of us. Our plans this summer will keep us closer to home, but I’m sure it won’t be too long before we’re off exploring the world again!

All aboard!

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It’s been a decidedly grey and drizzly week here in Devon, making getting out and about that little bit more challenging. However it did give us the excuse to revisit one of our favourite local attractions: the steam train that runs between Kingswear and Paignton.

This train will always have a special significance for our family. It was on a day out just after Christmas in 2012 that my waters broke and I began to go into labour with Arthur. We began what I’m sure will be an annual tradition with a trip on the steam train for his first birthday, but haven’t actually been back since. This time round he was much more aware of what was going on: he responded excitedly with ‘choo choo!’ when I told him about our plans in the morning, and his excitement increased tenfold once we were actually on the train.

We travelled in the Devon Belle observation carriage for the first time – it’s one of only two left in operation in the whole world, and gave us a fantastic panoramic view of the countryside as we chugged along. We were right up by the engine for the first leg of the trip, so the steam enveloped us whenever we passed under bridges giving everything an otherworldly aura that just added to the sense of travelling back in time.

The stations decked out with their vintage signs added to that too, as did the engines in the sidings and the trains that passed us on the other track.

We travelled along the river and through verdant woodland, though the best views were reserved for the stretch of track alongside Torbay: even with clouds shrouding the headlands it looked pretty spectacular.

When we pulled into Paignton we watched as the engine refilled with water before being moved to the other end of the train to pull us back towards Dartmouth.

As well as being pretty awesome to watch in itself this left us with an unobstructed view for our return trip – just the line disappearing behind us as train made its way back along the coast.

Arthur was keen to make the most of the view from every possible angle, enjoying the freedom of travelling without being confined to a car seat!

I’m not sure there are many more perfect ways to appreciate the beautiful place we live in than by trundling along in a steam train. It gives me a little thrill every time I see the plume of steam rising up across the bay, or hear the whistle echoing in the wind. I’m very glad that Arthur seems to share my enthusiasm, and I’m already looking forward to our next trip!

C is for Cadgwith

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A captivating cove in a hidden corner of Cornwall, Cadgwith has hardly changed in the thirty something years I’ve been visiting my family there. Thatched cottages nestling in the hills that roll down towards the shingle beach, fishing boats pulled up high on the pebbles out of reach of the sea or battling the waves to bring in their daily catch. C is for Cadgwith.

Joining in with The Alphabet Photography Project over at PODcast.

Kynance Cove

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Continuing the themes of exploring and beach fun that ran through our trip to Cornwall last week, we spent a fantastic afternoon at Kynance Cove. It’s not an easy beach to visit. To start with you have to get the tides just right: at high tide there’s no beach at all, just the waves crashing around the serpentine rocks. Then there’s the walk down from the car park – incredible views but steep and slippery. There is a route that’s apparently suitable for pushchairs but I was very glad of my Connecta! Once we made it down, though, it was clear it had been worth the effort: turquoise waters, white sand, and dramatic cliffs rising high above us.

The timing of it all meant we were well overdue lunch when we arrived – there was no doubt Arthur was hungry but it was definitely a challenge getting him to sit still for long enough to eat a sandwich…

He was much happier once we’d stripped him off and put him in his little wetsuit – raring to go and explore!

Another layer to protect him from the sun and he was off – running towards the sea with us following in quick pursuit.

He loved sitting in the sand with the water swirling around him, but even though I was right there this did begin to make me nervous – there are some pretty vicious rip tides at Kynance at low tide, and even in the shallows things looked a little unpredictable.

We managed to distract him for a while with the pools that formed by the rocks. He was curious about the seaweed strands that hung down and tickled his toes, and spent ages flicking sand onto his legs to watch the patterns that it made.

When he was ready to head back towards the sea we managed to divert him into a larger pool that had formed in the sand. He loved splashing around at its edges, and a couple of times tried to fling himself in for a swim!

After a while even Arthur began to get chilly, but soon warmed up with an impromptu game of football. He loved chasing around after the ball, and even managed to kick it a couple of times! He hasn’t managed that before, and was almost as impressed as me with his new skill.

He was less impressed when we told him it was time to go – I swear my little boy would happily live his life on the beach if we let him! But he soon began to realise the appeal of being warm and dry and was all smiles again before too long.

Tropical Trebah

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As well as catching up with family and enjoying the beautiful Lizard, we managed to fit a bit of exploring into this trip to Cornwall. There are so many brilliant places to visit nearby, and one of them is Trebah Garden.

We set off from Cadgwith to Helford Village, getting the ferry across the river for a quick lunch at The Ferryboat Inn. Arthur had his usual fish and chips, particularly enjoying dipping the chips in the mushy peas – a new and vitally important skill!

We decided to take the scenic route to Trebah, walking alongside the river until we got to the tiny village of Durgan – so unspoilt and picturesque it’s like stepping back in time. It wasn’t an easy walk though, and by the time Arthur had nodded off as we followed the path up to the gardens I was certainly feeling like I’d had a bit of a workout…

When we actually stepped into Trebah, though, there was no doubt that it had been worth it. The gardens sprawl over a valley, lush vegetation lining the paths which lead back down towards the river and massive trees towering above it all. Some areas had been carefully crafted, others appeared much more wild – the overall effect was of a tropical paradise rather than an English garden.

As Arthur continued his nap we were free to wander for a while, and I found myself seeking ideas for our garden at home. The flowers were so beautiful that even I, notoriously not green-fingered, couldn’t help but be inspired!

When Arthur did wake up, he was blown away by the place he found himself in. He pointed all around saying ‘Rose! Rose!’ (his universal word for ‘flower’ at the moment), and was thrilled by all the birds he could see and hear enjoying the gardens too.

He was even more excited when our meandering took us to a little play area where he rode a horse and became the captain of a ship. He was so taken in fact by that little red wheel that I thought at one point we’d never be able to lure him away…

We did have to move on eventually, but fortunately Arthur’s disappointment was short lived as there was still plenty more to keep him entertained. He was fascinated by the tadpoles in the fountain pool, and when we slipped into the cafe for a much needed cup of tea he was kept busy by the toys he found there.

It was so lovely to find somewhere different to explore, especially somewhere that had so much for all of us to enjoy. We’ll definitely be back – I’m intrigued to see how the gardens change with the seasons – and I would very much recommend a visit if you ever find yourself in that part of Cornwall. You can find out more about it here!

Word of the Week: Dada

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Today the word that sums up the week that was is:

After the fantastic family wedding that drew us down to Cornwall, Leigh had to head home pretty promptly to keep up with his medical school commitments. Not having anything in particular to lure us back, Arthur and I stayed in Cadgwith with my parents.

From moments after Leigh drove away Arthur began to wonder where he was, and calls of ‘dada’ have punctuated the rest of our week. Whenever anyone came to the door Arthur’s eyes lit up, and the anticipation when anyone reached for the phone was almost too much to bear. It was dada who was on the other side of the door whenever Arthur heard the shower running, and dada who he cried out for in the middle of the night as I tried to hold him close.

There was a silver lining to all this: over the course of the week having only me as a familiar comforter Arthur has come to trust my parents more and more. From beach fun to sleepy stories it’s been lovely to watch them bond – and to watch Arthur realise that his safety net extends further than he perhaps initially thought.

Still, though, I think Arthur is going to be overjoyed to realise his dada still exists – and not just on Skype. And without a doubt I’m going to be very glad to have my co-parent back by my side.

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Sophie is…

on a journey of (re)discovery in a brave new world.