Team Bundance in training I wrote this in 2012, but it’s sports day again this week… To my left a woman in running shorts – bare, muscled calves twitching to be off. Taller than me by a head. On the right the short-haired mum has pulled off her floral blouse to reveal a running top […]
Things your children don’t need
Back to offering unrequested advice again. This time parenting advice, like it or not. It’s almost Boy Three’s seventh birthday. (Seven! I know, can you believe it?) So it was necessary to organise a celebration. Interesting how there’s an inverse correlation between the number of children’s birthdays you’ve presided over and the level of […]
Advice for would-be family camper
At first glance, camping is wonderful. It’s cheap, it’s simple, it fosters adventure and togetherness and – if photos are to be believed – everyone doing it is grinning like an idiot. And, at some levels, this is true, but only if you do it right. Camping is incredibly complicated, stressful and unpleasant if you […]
PGL Dalguise: The kind of holiday that makes you rethink everything
It was risky, I’ll admit. I booked us a five-day break at PGL’s centre in Perthshire by way of a compromise. It’s very tricky finding something that will suit even some of us most of the time. There’s the 16-year-old culture vulture, his 14-year-old brother who only wants to go fast, the six-year-old with the […]
Things I learned from skiing in Scotland
On Saturday, Boy Two discovered that the strings attached to his snowboarding lessons were that he had to accompany his mother on trips to Glencoe when it suited her. “Really?” He said opening one eye. “Maybe later.” It was early o’clock on a Saturday and he had big plans with a box set and some […]