A couple of days in the sun.

It dawned on us recently that we hadn't had a holiday, just the three of us, without it involving visiting other family members, since R was born.  We were never big on foreign holidays anyway.  A week abroad every couple of years was plenty for us.  City breaks were the norm.  Other than that, our only holidays away from visiting relatives, were usually tagged onto family visits.

One thing that we had really enjoyed was camping.  It started with our childhood family holidays to the New Forest or North Wales, moved onto festivals and back full circle to the Yorkshire Dales.  We had finally got our perfect tent (three man with an awning for our gear), two stoves, thermal sleeping mats, decent sleeping bags.  We hadn't gone mad, but we could cope from Spring into Autumn.  Then, of course, pregnancy occurred, R turned up, and camping was shelved. 

As well as the pressures of dealing with a premature baby we had the added self-inflicted pressure of living far from our families.  Granny lives in Edinburgh while Nanna lives in Windsor.  A 4 hour drive in either direction means that we can't just pop over for Sunday lunch.  Even a weekend trip seams a little daft so most of our annual leave entitlement involves either the M1 or A1 for hours at a time.

This weekend however we decided to make some time for ourselves and try to rekindle our love affair with camping.  Gone is the 3 man tent in favour of a family friendly 6 man tent, giving us space for more family members in the future.  The stoves have been augmented with a portable barbecue and our thermal sleeping mats have been replaced by a queen sized airbed as Z is demanding her creature comforts.  What could go wrong.

If you hadn't noticed, this weekend was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, in England, that means one thing and one thing only, rain.  I had checked the weather forecast in advance so this came to no real surprise.  We had taken an emergency "pop up" tent with us for R to shelter in while we shouted, swore and got soaked to the bone.  The combination of the torrential summer rain, coupled with a brand new tent that we hadn't erected before, made for an entertaining half an hour.  Of course, with the tent up, the rain eased off.  R quickly made himself comfortable, spread some toys into every corner of the tent and set about exploring the five meters of canvas that was to be our home for the next two nights.

 

The rain didn't stop until the middle of the night.  That didn't stop me from lighting the barbecue, nor did it stop us from finding the steep path down from the cliff to camp site to the beach.  We explored the ruins of the second world war pillboxes that had fallen from their elevated positions to become high tide homes for stranded sea creatures.  Z even found a fossil although I'm not sure what it's a fossil of.

The next morning we woke to discover a flaw in our bargain tent.  With the wind in the right direction rain was being blown under one of the ventilation windows and into R's bedroom.  Luckily he was sleeping at one side of the room so didn't wake up in a puddle.  The rain had at least stopped, but the clouds hung to the site like the barnacles which covered the pillboxes.  We made the decision to leave our tend and explore Filey, somewhere that I had been to a couple of times but neither Z or R had had the pleasure of.

 

We had made the right decision.  A ten minute drive later and we were in brilliant sunshine, paddling in the sea, building sandcastles and eating fish and chips.  The only down side to our day trip was that R had his first encounter with a wasp.  We were worried because his grandfather, Poppa John, is allergic to wasps but happily it looks like that particular gene hasn't been passed down the line.

Back at the site the weather had finally lifted.  Now that we could see past the end of our guy ropes R started to get brave.  Just how far away from the tent and from us could he get?  We were all happy as long as we could see each other, it was only when he rounded the side of a tent a couple of hundred meters away that I put my running practise in to use and shepherded him back where we could see him again.

Our second night passed without a hitch.  Putting R to bed and having to stay around the tent meant that we could spend plenty of quality time together.  We played cards, chatted and managed that rarest of things, an early night and eight hours of sleep.  The next morning we were woken by what passes for the dawn chorus on camp sites, families screaming at each other as one child complained that their sibling was in their part of the tent.  The mothers attempt to calm things down was even louder and more shrill than the original complaint.  I'm glad it wasn't us but it made for a reminder of things hopefully to come.

We packed up our tent and made our way home happy in the knowledge that we had survived our first family holiday.  We had also rekindled our love affair with pitching a tent and sleeping under canvas.  Best of all R had a great time.  In his words "I love camping." and with those words spinning around my head I'm already planning our next camping adventure.

Children's Menu - Sukhothai

Anybody who knows me probably knows that this is not my first attempt at blogging.  What you are reading is actually my fourth blog, but I have not started writing this one at the cost of the others.  My other blogs are all food related, so I guess it was only a matter of time before food reared its head here.  The thing with children is that they constantly want feeding!

At home R usually tucks into most things that we put in front of him, mood permitting, but we are not always at home.  We do venture over the doorstep and brave the big wide world and that is when trouble can start.  This summer we have been taking picnics with us when we have been venturing out, but every now and then a more substantial meal is called for and that is when we run into the Children's Menu.

As I mentioned, R likes his food, however there are a lot of Children's Menus out there that consist of burgers, bangers and mash, fish fingers, spag boll, chicken nuggets and not a lot else.  We're not food snobs* by a long shot and, apart from the chicken nuggets, we feed these types of meals to him at home.  The difference being, at home I can vouch for the quality of the produce, in a pub, cafe or restaurant I cannot.

Recently however, I was made aware that Leeds based Thai restaurant chain Sukhothai had a children's menu.  I was determined to give it a go as; a) I had never eaten in Sukhothai and had heard good things, and b) We had never given R Thai food.  He loves pasta and noodles so we thought we would be onto a winner and this week we got our chance to try it out.

As it was a midweek lunch time the restaurant, on South Parade, was quiet apart from a few suits.  The business people didn't look too happy about a buggy being pushed into their midst but the staff were happy to see us and got us seated very fast.  Speed is key when dealing with hungry toddlers so while R counted the butterflies on his menu we chose dishes from the Express Menu.

Complimentary prawn crackers kept us occupied until the main courses arrived, but when they did I started to wish I hadn't allowed him to eat so many of them.  His children's portion of Pad Broccoli with noodles was as big, if not bigger, than my Pad Kee Mao.  He was never going to finish all of it but he did give it a good go.  He even insisted on using chopsticks which completely blew me away as he'd never used them before.

Yes, that is a children's portion!

Even though he ate a lot there was still plenty on his plate by the time he'd finished.  Of course he still had room for ice cream and he wisely swapped the chopsticks for a spoon.  His two course meal was £4.95 which, given the portions, was superb value for money.  It was really healthy too, packed with fresh vegetables, even the ice cream came with fresh fruit.  Our meals were good too, so good in fact that I think we'll be going back for more.

If you are in town, or close to any of Sukhothai's 3 other restaurants with children in tow, you should give it a try.  For the record this is not a sponsored blog, I was not invited to eat at Sukhothai and I received no freebies.  I just had a really good lunch with my family.

*well we might be a bit snobby.