The Joy Of Occasionally Escaping Into The Wilds.

 were in the fortunate position of being asked by a couple of our friends if we fancied a small escape to the country recently. After the birth of our second child, it seemed almost perfect timing as with these events a certain amount of tiredness starts to become ingrained into the psyche gradually wearing you down from the inside out until you begin fraying a little, like old jeans. The destination was County Durham, a place I have never been too and actually hand on hand probably would not have been my first pick for a holiday destination, my knowledge of the Prince Bishops County is limited to the fact that it contains Durham. That's not a lot of fact-ige. So to start with it was perfectly timed and promised a whole new county to experience in a holiday cottage that promised a 'games barn' too! The only compromise, if you can call it that was a complete and total loss of Phone signal and internet (internet accessed through the wi-fi in the games barn). Having no phone sginal for 4 days proved quite a pleasant experience, it felt like 1996 again which was when I bought my first mobile phone! like this one here.

The friends we went away with have iphones and I have a BlackBerry, times have certainly changed phone wise and not in that many years either. I still remember ringing people from phone boxes. I have no idea how I shall explain this process to my children. But anyway I am digressing.

After much travelling through windy and winding roads, after leaving the A1 where our near two year old decided again to throw up all over the car seat. This time she vomited up strawberry's from lunch, which in the vomit stakes, is actually quite an appealing choice. Relatively difficult to clean up but the car did smell quite lovely and fruity all the way to the cottage almost like an air freshener really. Though the image of me trudging through Leeming services hand in hand with a child who wore only a pair of trousers and a short sleeved white vest covered in strawberry stains while her hair had been matted by wet wipes, will forever live in my memory as though I was escorting the worlds smallest Hobo. We did though arrive, at about 5pm. Just in time for dinner.

The cottage is set in quite frankly some of the prettiest countryside in the country. Bordering the derwent reservoir and it looked a little something like this. Above and below are the views to the back of the cottage.Down in the valley sits the Derwent Reservoir.

View from cottages showing playground

View from Back of cottages

The Playground was pretty neat too, except for the one basic flaw that at some point on the slide a small child can go from sitting at the top and within 2 metres of slide somehow accelerate to the velocity required to break the Earth's gravitational pull. Which is impressive and I did consider phoning Professor Brian Cox, had I had a phone signal of course! Grace, my daughter as I kept catching her at the bottom of the slide to stop her turning into the child version of the delorean in back to the future, having to explain to my wife where our daughter has gone by pointing at a flaming streak across a playgroud, while appearing saddened but at the same time thinking that would be the coolest thing in the world, turning your children into time machines, but my wife may disagree. But for the kids it was a  good place, with sandpit too. But the icing on the cake as far as they were concerned was the 'games barn', which, was a pretty cool idea who ever had it. To build a purpose built building of a fairly vast size that contained some games. Our friends said that it did possess a ball pool which was sadly not there, also not there was the puck from the air hockey, arguably a more fundamental issue and perhaps maybe someone of an older generation may have mistaken it for a coaster and taken it to one of the cottages. For all I know it may have been under my coffee all week. They seemed vaguely puck like I seem to remember. But it did possess plastic vehicles, building blocks, skittles, books and toys so it wasn't too bad at all. 

'Take me to the games barn, games barn'

So all in all a great place for children. Plenty to do inside and out and Grace had a great time, her brother who at nearly 2 months just kind of lay there and dribbled really, which is pretty much what his dad would like to do really. It's been a tough year I guess.

The accommodation was fantastic too and I will always say that you can judge a quality self catering place by the standard of their kitchen knives and pan set. I am pleased to say that both of these were great, although the knives were a little blunt!

So we had great weather, great facilities and great company with which to enjoy ourselves, though being able to enjoy yourselves when you have 2 couples and 4 young and very young children between them is always a term that needs defining. It was fun though and a nice break away. We even managed to visit places too! Though I was saddened that the Roman town nearby was closed on the days we were there. I thought that would have been a great place to go, but alas not to be. I do have one complaint in that the couple we went with by sheer chance I am told found a poor farm shop but then discovered what sounded like the greatest ice cream farm shop in County Durham! While we were at Morrisons, the reasons for which could be the fact that had I not been there, we'd have had curry for dinner but with no rice. Which shows how badly organised I am before a holiday.

The whole of the family had a great time with Paul & Zoe and the fantastic Esther 'Chugger' and also finally but by now means the least, the Jolly little MJ who seemed to spend the whole time just being really content and smiley. The saddest part was leaving as the company had been great but the time away had been too short!