Some people are very surprised that for the past three holidays I have not been abroad. Some people say “Oh, but it’s not a holiday!” unless you actually leave the country you live in, which I have always found slightly odd. The truth is, I have lived in England for over 20 years and seen embarrassingly little of it, so we rectified this forthwith.
The first place we visited was Scotland. For a start, Scotland is beautiful. Breath-taking, actually. The scenery in Scotland is so stunning it will actually leave you feeling slightly overwhelmed, a little tearful, and yes, like you should be playing bagpipes on a hill in a kilt with a haggis.
When me and Mr Sarah go on holiday, we spend a lot of time in the car. I respect the fact that this is not for everyone, but luckily Mr Sarah loves driving and I love being a passenger. As long as I have a drink, a bag of sweets and the radio in close comfort I am a happy bunny. On some holidays, we have spent up to 9 hours a day in the car. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, and I actually really enjoy it. You can always stop the car and go for a walk if you need to, so don’t feel like it’s oppressive because it’s not.
When we went to Scotland, we stayed in a spa hotel about 20 minutes’ drive from the centre of Edinburgh. The hotel was stunning, the service fast class and if we ever return to Scotland (which we will) we intend to stay there again. It was beautiful, the room was huge and fancy, they filled the bathroom to the brim with toiletries every single day and the food was amazing. Edinburgh is a fantastic city, incredibly aimed and geared up for tourists. The city is an incredible mix of the modern and the historical, and there is so much to do, I really feel that it would be entirely possible to just go there every day for your week away and not be bored. If you head to Edinburgh, I cannot recommend enough Mary Keens close tour (the city under the city) and the castle, which is amazing and HUGE.
Just driving around Scotland was just amazing. The local radio station exclusively played The Proclaimers and Big Country, which made me smile a lot. It has it all, suburbs, rolling hills, and mountains so high there was a blanket of snow despite the blazing heat. It was just an endless round of green, green and more green. There are plenty of restaurants and the night life is great. Everywhere, and I mean, everywhere, served Irn Bru, to the extent that most shops had a little separate fridge for it. Heaven.
The second place we visited was Wales. Wales is easily as beautiful as Scotland. We stayed slap bag in the centre of Cardiff, in a little place called Mermaid Quay. Our hotel was a huge sweeping block, with a view over the bay. It was so amazing we slept with the curtains open every night, watching the twinkling lights of ships. We could see the BBC centre from our room too. Cardiff is a very modern, very busy city, full to the brim with busy executive types dashing around to their jobs at the swish tower blocks that are everywhere. Mermaid Quay has a fantastic array of adorable little shops and fantastic restaurants and bars, in case you don’t fancy travelling further afield. Of course, Cardiff has a much smaller amount of history than Scotland, but it still has stunning architecture, and it is the place to go if you like Torchwood as it was filmed there, and down the road from our hotel was a spooky shrine type thing covered in flowers and pictures of Captain Jack (is that the guy? I am sorry if it’s not, I have never seen it.)
We drove up to North Wales for the latter part of our holiday, and stayed in a hotel there. Llandudno is exactly my kind of seaside resort, meaning that it was a sprawling mass of metal fixed caravans, plastic, chips and garish t shirts that have pictures of cartoon women with enormous boobs. It’s a very pretty little seaside town, if a little run-down and faded, but I like that. That north in Wales, all the locals sound like they’re from Liverpool as it’s so close. The enormous cliffs there are a sight to behold.
Finally, this year, we had a real road trip holiday. We stayed in Cornwall, then Devon, and finished up in Brighton, travelling our way across the South. Cornwall and Devon are such beautiful little places, and make you feel astonishingly English. Perhaps the most shocking thing is that there is so much to do we didn’t have time to cram it all in. There are steam railways, Bodmin Jail (creepy as hell and WELL WORTH a visit), Durdle Door, Charlestown Bay, Cheddar Gorge, and the list goes on and on. We visited a miniature pony sanctuary, whereupon I cuddled a baby donkey (who was so fluffy) and a tiny baby miniature pony, who was about the size of a large housecat tried to eat my boots and nibbled my knee. I win.
The sea there is stunning azure blue, and so many places are so unspoiled and adorable. Again, there is a very healthy mix of the quaint and historical and modern, depending upon your tastes. You can’t be bored if you go there, and as long as you don’t mind some absolutely mental roads (anything less than a 25% gradient doesn’t exist, apparently) and some very determined cyclists, it is a pleasure to drive around. I am now addicted to pasties and Cornish ice cream and I regret nothing.
Lands’ End was even more stunning that I thought it would be. It felt like standing at the edge of the world, and we climbed over the fencing and sat on a big flat rock, overlooking the sea. It is really quite amazing, seeing the most violent sea I have ever witnessed crashing and crashing into the enormous rocks there. The wind smells deliciously of nothing, and yet there are plenty of shops and pubs there to keep you amused if walking the dirty tracks are not your thing.
It is true that when you holiday in the UK you are not guaranteed the weather. However, this doesn’t bother me. I am not a sun worshipper and quite frankly I get a heat rash if I stand too near the toaster. The best advice really is to research what you can do if it is raining, and take a rain mac just in case. Nearly every hotel you stay in will have Wi-Fi, so you can always have a look while you’re there. Most foyers are stuffed with magazines and leaflets about things you can do too- always worth checking to see what is around.
We found out about Longleat from a leaflet, and it also had money off vouchers inside. Longleat is simply amazing. A lioness strolled casually past our car. If, like me, you’re a cat worshipper, I do tend to just think “Aww, look at the big kitty!” and want to scratch it behind the ears. Well, as she ambled past the car, I saw up close that lions are all muscle, topped off with paws the size of dinner plates and teeth like something from a nightmare. I know this sounds silly but I hope you see where I’m coming from. Cheetahs, which I have never seen in person before, are astonishingly agile, graceful, watchful creatures. Longleat also has a big petting zoo bit you can walk around, and meerkat ran over my foot, and a nanny goat skipped around me, sounding like a tiny tap dancer on their tip toes. I saw a baby seal born literally the night before (they are so tiny) and two otters swimming gleefully around each other. If you are an animal loving lunatic like me, this really is what heaven looks like.
Holidays in the UK have absolutely loads of benefits, and need not be expensive if you don’t want them to be. You won’t lose any money on exchange rates, you needn’t take a phrase book, and, a nod to my fellow pale ones here, you needn’t look like a baked lobster and spend the next 5 days screaming “DON’T TOUCH ME”. Having a car has enormous benefits too, like buying all manner of everything you can get your hands on and not having to worry about carting it home. I am also a panic packer when we go away, jamming in at least 27 outfits, 2 spare coats, boots, trainers, spare trainers and so forth.
We have had a delightful time having our holidays in the UK, and I would go back to any of the places we have been before without hesitation.
