The kids on their second go around in the infamous water ride at Drayton Manor. Sat in the bowels of the Bilbao-Portsmouth ferry in the campervan waiting to disembark, we listened to crackly AM radio as England played Argentina in the World Cup semi - sadly by the time we’d made the short drive from Portsmouth to Sunnydale Fram campsite at Hamble, they had lost and it was all over for anothr four years. Doh. ...
The ruined Ermita de Santiago, which both of us ran past on our trail runs. Summer 2026 family trip began after volunteering at parkrun in Gibraltar with a drive to Granada and its eponymous campsite, in the dusty half-built suburbs on the outskirts of the pretty villgae of Peligros. It was hot, overcast and windy but the site had a pleasant pool with views over the city. Dylan and I played ball in the pool while the girls had a heart to heart as Maya got her head around ‘45 days’ away from her friends. After coconut dal and rice we played Go Fish and failed to stream the England footie, waking to learn we’d reached the World Cup semis. ...
Quick trip to the UK with Dylan to investigate narrowboats and help a running coach friend set up a ‘garden shed’ YouTube/remote coaching studio, also to do some running of course… on the hottest UK Bank Holiday weekend on record. Hire car from Heathrow to our first night’s stop at The Olde Coach House Inn in the picture-book village of Ashby St Ledgers, near Daventry - a nice country pub with decent food, and a wonderful summer beer garden. ...
Our joint end-of-April trip to Boston to run the marathon was our first real trip away together without the kids since we’ve had them, and our first joint race since Barcelona in 2010. And it’s fair to say we were excited. As we crossed the border and began our trip to Málaga airport, Faye phoned the local radio station to enter a competition to win some cupcakes from our favourite bakery, A Piece of Cake. We didn’t win the cakes - but we did get a decent shout out, which definitely added extra cheer to the morning. ...
We have for over a decade had a property in Estepona, 45 minutes’ drive east towards Malaga from our Gibraltar base. This may be the last year we own it as we’re thinking of selling up due to spending more time in the campervan and less time having ‘static’ holidays and breaks over the border. Thus our downtime spent there this week was poignant and full of memories, as we enjoyed the big real fire, the views across the bay to Gibraltar, and the imposing Los Reales mountain looming down on us, as ever, at the back (which I ran up once - another story!). ...
The idea of this half-term mini-break was a ’lads and dads’ bonding trip, and Dylan and I had chosen to return to the canals and locks of England having enjoyed it so much in July, this time inviting my friend Gareth and his son Robert to accompany us. And so we found ourselves flying into Birmingham on a blustery late-October afternoon, taking a short Uber ride to Alvechurch Marina on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, and boarding the Common Swift, our 50ft narrowboat home for the next four nights. ...
Our final stop on the summer’s travels was the only campsite we hadn’t pre-planned, and choosing it reminded us of why we’ve been planning our summers ahead of time recently: You fall into the trap of endlessly swiping on phones for the ‘perfect’ next place to stay, while not enjoying the one you’re at! The irony this time was that when I finally located a site somewhere on the way home that seemed to suit, Faye said, ‘I’m sure we’ve been to that one before.’ I was adamant we hadn’t, because the only site the photos reminded me of was in Portugal, or so I thought - but no, Faye was right, and we had indeed visited this site, four years ago. The good news was that we loved it back then, so we had high hopes. ...
UK heatwave! The mercury rose rapidly as we left the Lake District for the trip down south to spend a night down at my Dad’s in Bracknell, arriving mid-afternoon in broad sunshine. We spent the evening sat in the garden catching up, before a wonderful, huge dinner with chicken and potatoes plus multiple home-made dessert options (chocolate cake! tiramisu! lemon drizzle cake!). We certainly felt looked after, with stepmum Christine’s Irish family feeding instinct kicking in. ...
We wanted to show the kids The Lake District, so we left relaxed Seahouses and headed west, noting the proximity of Hadrian’s Wall just to our north for much of the journey, and the change from fields and trees to more rugged moorland as we drew closer, finally negotiating some narrow country roads to drop down to Bowness. I had drunk one too many coffees that morning, judging by the number of times I had to stop for a ‘can’t wait’ toilet break, too; turns out there are few service stations on the A-roads across the top of the country, so it’s just as well I can do roadsides! ...
Time to show the kids the Great British Seaside. Seahouses is a small, out-of-the-way fishing village and seaside escape just north of Newcastle, that you get to from the A1 through miles of fields, and that has endless windswept beaches with fine sand, low rock formations, grassy dunes, and - away from the campsite, car parks and independent shops - few people. We got there via a quick lunch stopover at the Scotts Arms near to Wetherby Bridge, where we met up with fellow campers Roy and Lynda who were also joining us on the trip in their motorhome. From there it was past the Angel of the North (singularly unimpressive from our bit of the motorway, I have to say, mainly hidden behind trees), and cross-country to reach Seahouses and the breezy, spacious Seafield Park campsite right on the beach and just a minute’s walk from the little town centre. ...