Tag: holiday

An Enchanted Tradition

We recently returned from our annual trip to the Enchanted Forest in Pitlochry, which has been our tradition for over a decade.

The theme changes every year, and this year was called Luminara, which tried to capture the interconnection, balance and harmony between nature and technology. We have been to a lot of light shows around Scotland over the years but the Enchanted Forest is easily the most ambitious and technologically impressive. There were a few parts that were stunning, but overall this wasn’t our favourite theme as it felt less cohesive and a bit more spread out than previous years.

We stayed at a lodge just a few miles outside of Pitlochry and it was ideal, cosy with slightly more space than a caravan. We took a trip into Pitlochry again the next day to visit the Christmas Emporium to let our daughters choose ornaments for their Christmas tree and a lollypop from the sweetshop, before we ate a simple but tasty lunch at Hettie’s Tea Shop.

It’s always interesting to chat to the locals while we’re in the area, who have a bit of an ambivalent relationship with the Enchanted Forest as it brings a huge amount of tourism and money to the local economy, but locals always complain about a month of parking restrictions and none of the locals we spoke to had been to the show themselves.

We stopped at Active Kids Adventure play with the kids on the way home, our girls had a hoot climbing up and sliding down the indoor tree house, then we went outside for trampolines, go karts and crazy golf. I think this might become part of our annual tradition too while the kids are young.

This was our last trip for the year, we’ve been so lucky to have had some lovely holidays from our visit to Northumbria in Spring, our Summer holiday in St Andrews, our glamping trip in September and finally The Enchanted Forest. Every time I’ve loved seeing the kids’ excitement about staying in a caravan or lodge, exploring somewhere new or returning to a favourite place together.

Have a lovely week. X

Summer Holidays

This is a big week for our family as our oldest daughter starts school tomorrow, and as the summer holidays draw to a close, I’m reminiscing about one of the highlights of the summer, our family holiday in July. This year we booked a caravan in St Andrews, which is not actually that far away from where we live, but further away than we’d take the kids for a day trip.

The caravan park we stayed at was beside the Fife Coastal Path meaning we were a short walk from East Sands beach. We had the most incredible view from the caravan, and I loved seeing the sun set over the iconic sites of the Cathedral and Castle ruins every evening, and the sun burning through the mist in the morning.

We spent a good bit of time exploring local sites and attraction from Craigtoun Country Park, which has lovely grounds to wander and adventure playparks but also a variety of paid activities from mini golf and go karts to tractor rides and mini train, and bouncy castles through the summer. We visited the Aquarium, which is small but packed full of interesting creatures including axolotl, meerkats and a colony of Humbolt penguins. We picked strawberries and cherries at Cairnie fruit farm, where the kids also enjoyed trampolines, sandpit, go-karts and slides.

We drove up to Dundee for a day trip to see the RSS Discovery museum and the V&A Dundee. We’d visited the Discovery once before and it’s absolutely fascinating learning about Scott and the brave explorers in the Antarctic, there were plenty of interactive parts for the kids too, though they were a bit less awed by it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the V&A Dundee as I’ve only ever seen photos of the exterior, but it exceeded all my expectations. There were stem puzzles, games and blocks for kids to play with at the entrance, plus dress up areas upstairs, and there’s also a free exhibition of Palestinian embroidery (Tatreez) running from June 2025 to Spring 2026 to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of Dundee twinning with Nablus in the West Bank.

We spent a bit of time at the beach every day too, splashing in the waves, digging in the sand and building sandcastles. We also visited Jeanetta’s Gelateria almost every day for ice cream.

I don’t always feel we get the balance right between relaxation and activities, and as fun and exciting as our holidays are, it is always good to get home and settle back into our routines, but this was a really lovely break.

Have a lovely week. X

Spring Break

March has flown by and just finding some time to share a post about a little weekend away we had.

Our previous two summer holidays were in East Lothian but we decided to travel a little bit further down the East Coast and cross the English border into Northumbria on this trip.

It was the longest journey we’ve taken with the kids in the car, and we decided to break up the journey by stopping off at East Links Farm Park for lunch. We’d visited East Links on our summer holiday last year, but now that our youngest is bigger and more mobile it was even more fun. We had a great time riding on the little train that circles around the farm with sheep and lamas coming up to say hello, racing around on go karts, exploring the fort and tumbling around in the soft-play barn. Then it was back into the car for the last leg of our journey.

We stayed in a caravan park, on the edge of a little lake that had swans, ducks, coots, and geese waddling by our decking to our daughters’ delight.

It’s still early spring, and the weather did dictate our activities a bit, but still managed to find plenty to do. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Northumberland Zoo, a small family run zoo, where the capybaras, armadillos, Arctic fox and tiny harvest mice were the unexpected stars of the show.

I also couldn’t resist a visit to Barter Books, somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for ages, which is a huge second hand bookshop built in Alnwick’s old Victorian railway station, where we all found a book.

As is often the case with UK holidays, the sunniest day was on our way home so we decided to take advantage of it to visit one of our favourite beaches, Coldingham Bay in the Borders. My husband and our oldest daughter went searching for critters in rock pools, while I built sand castles with our youngest, before we regrouped to climb Homeli Knoll and collect sea glass on the rocky beach on the other side.

Our holidays are always fun, but never the relaxing or peaceful break we imagine with two little rascals pulling us in all directions. After our travels, there’s something really comforting about returning home and settling back into our familiar routines, but we’re already thinking about our summer holiday.

Have a lovely week. X

An Enchanted Adventure

October has been a beautiful month with the trees all putting on a glorious show of colours before they shed their leaves. One of the highlights of the month for us is always a trip up to Pitlochry to wander around our favourite light show, the Enchanted Forest.

This year has been particularly hectic for my husband and I with lots of work changes and stresses, so instead of a single night, we decided to make a weekend of it and booked a lodge at Moness in Aberfeldy. Of course, travelling with two little kids is never as peaceful or relaxing as we imagine, but we all had fun.

The Enchanted Forest is such a long standing tradition of ours and we’ve had so many different experiences here at different points in our relationship from getting engaged here 11 years ago, returning as newlyweds a month after our wedding to now sharing the excitement with our little daughters.

The Enchanted Forest was really wonderful this year, the theme was Symphony of Nature, and it had some really beautiful and impressive features. It was a late night for our little girls but both really enjoyed it, especially with the treat of chips for dinner and a toasted marshmallow afterwards.

In contrast to last year, when the kids didn’t really want to stand still and preferred the interactive parts, our favourite parts of the show were the sections over Loch Faskally with a display projected over the water, and another part with beautiful fountains of water all illuminated. Our youngest also loved wandering across the sparkly bridge and finding all the frogs hiding in the forest.

Moness Resort was a great place to stay, we woke to the excitement of ducks quacking at our windows demanding breakfast every morning, before enjoying an early swim in the pool we early risers had all to ourselves. It was a lovely weekend adventure, but I’m glad to be safe and cosy at home while the winds howl, rain patters against the window and Storm Ashley rages outside. Have a lovely week. X

Summer of Sand and Sea

There’s been a slight crisp coldness sneaking into our mornings foreshadowing autumn, and after a very overcast and rainy summer, I’m ready for the change of season. Despite the weather, the highlight of my summer was our family holiday, when we returned to East Lothian again though a different caravan park this time around, right beside the seaside.

There’s something so wholesome and nostalgic about the simplicity of spending days at the beach paddling in the sea and filling our pockets full of shells then returning to a cosy caravan in the evening.

The weather was patchy with the best days on the days we arrived and departed, and mostly overcast with showers in between but it didn’t stop us from doing everything we had planned. We are none of us very good at relaxing and usually squeeze a lot of activities and sightseeing into our holidays, and this trip was no exception.

We enjoyed a morning in Edinburgh visiting the Camera Obscura and World of Illusions, which exceeded all expectations and was really fun with so many interactive displays that the kids loved. Our favourite parts were feeling (and bumping) our way through the mirror maze and the Vortex, which is an optical illusion with a bridge through a revolving tunnel that had us all clinging to the barrier convinced we were going to be tilted and turned upside down.

We also returned to one of the beautiful beaches we’d discovered on our holiday last year. Coldingham Bay is a beautiful beach with colourful beach huts and crashing waves favoured by surfers and bodyboarders. My husband and our oldest daughter went splashing in the waves while I built sandcastles for our youngest to smash. We all took a wander along the hill and found a rocky little shingle where the kids entertained themselves stacking pebbles, before returning to the main sandy beach for one last splash in the sea before heading home. It was definitely one of my favourite parts of our holiday.

As much as I love our little family holidays and look forward to so many more as our girls grow, after a few days living in close quarters in a caravan, it’s always good to return home to be reunited with our cat Mara who stayed home with my dad pet-sitting while we were away. Now we’re looking forward to autumn and another wee break away. X