We’ve recently spent a glorious week on the Isle of Wight, watching as the gloomy dark skies enveloped the mainland while most of the time we were lucky enough to have sweeping blue skies above us.
I love the Isle of Wight; it’s just a short hop over for us on the ferry from Portsmouth twenty minutes away from where we live, yet it feels like you’ve left the country. It reminds me a little of New Zealand with its lush countryside, quiet coves and quaint little coffee shops.
We managed to bag a cheap last minute caravan holiday through eBay, which thankfully was a good enough deal to persuade Husband that it wasn’t worth camping in his new monstrous 12 man tent this year. Camping at 32 weeks pregnant and with a pair of explorers in tow would have been a nightmare.
We arrived to torrential downpours which meant driving through lots of flooded roads. Thankfully, our people carrier is more like a van and it held its own as we ploughed on through the water that was more than a foot deep in places. The appalling weather seemed to set the tone for the day. Once inside the caravan I managed to break a bedroom lamp by picking it up – I swear the lightshade crumpled at my touch and turned into a wonky, poor excuse for a piece of furniture. As bedtime approached, T1 managed to pull the bedside table off the wall in their room. I’d already been through and stripped out anything that they could damage or which could damage them. I hadn’t banked on the bedside table being a danger, but once it was snapped off it left a row of very angry, sharp spikes. Without a screwdriver we couldn’t fix it and the reception was already closed, so Husband had to use his ingenuity to bend the spikes into harmless loops using a pair of kitchen scissors. Through the first night the boys managed to each roll out of bed onto the floor twice, and woke up screaming each time. The next morning the boys were up and running around at 6am (with no stairgates or GroClock to keep them in bed) and as we wiped the sleep from our eyes, T1 took the lid off the kitchen bin and jumped on it, shattering it to smithereens.
Thankfully, a holiday that began with a few disasters ended with us having a fantastic time. We visited some wild beaches, started each day with a fry up, ate cream teas served from little beach huts and took in the vistas of low tide with a cliff backdrop while trying to keep hold of the boys who were determined to run off and never come back. We flew kites, ate ice cream and managed to cram in a few attractions for the boys along the way. T2 developed an unhealthy obsession with cows, which meant every day he demanded we start the day with a trip to a local field. It made me realise that while I was lucky enough to grow up in rural Lincolnshire surrounded by fields of cows and sheep, down south where we live now the landscape is crammed with houses and motorways.
I know it’s not quite Menorca, but we still had an amazing holiday together on the Isle of Wight. If you love quiet beaches, rolling green hills and open spaces then you can’t go wrong here. It’s a fantastic place for children to run free and enjoy the outdoors. You can even use your Tesco Reward vouchers to pay for your ferry over so it doesn’t need to cost a fortune. We had a great time on our last holiday as a family of four; next year it’ll be a whole different ball game.
Cuddledry and Timmy Time
In preparation for the summer sun (which we saw glimpses of on our holiday), Cuddledry has teamed up with Timmy from Timmy Time to promote their sun protection poncho and celebrate the premiere of Timmy’s Seaside Rescue. The poncho protects your little ones from the sun using patented technology which dyes the fabric with a high quality 50+ sun block and acts like a mirror, deflecting the harmful UVA and UVB rays off the towel, instead of letting them pass through the fabric and harm delicate skin. You can also get two for one entry to Sea Life Centres by buying special packs online at www.cuddledry.com or through stores including Boots. If we were going abroad this summer I’d definitely pick up a pair of these for the boys as they look brilliant!
Notes:
I’m a Superblogger for Cuddledry which allows me to share information about their news and products. In return I receive some discounts on their products and early access to their sale items. I did not receive any reward in direct response for mentioning the above information in my blog post, but I included it as I genuinely thought it looked cool!
This post wasn’t sponsored by Isle of Wight Tourism – we paid for everything ourselves and really had a fantastic time.
