Sorry this week’s post is a bit late! Hubby and I got home yesterday afternoon from a week away in the Brecon Beacons. I’m still in a post-holiday daze. A Holidaze as it were. It’s a weird feeling, sometimes I feel like you need a holiday after a holiday. The pressure of using your days fully (if not always wisely) and trying to cram in as many activities and sights as possible and keeping everybody amused, fed and watered, entertained and happy is sometimes draining. You can forget to actually relax! Then, when you get home there’s the mountain of washing to be done, a fridge to restock and a house to put to rights before you get back to work.
To be fair this holiday was a lot more relaxed than others and we made sure to plot in days to do nowt but read. It’s a break we’d booked back in 2019 that we’d postponed, moved and debated cancelling several times over the last two years. We had gone to the Hay Festival in 2019 and we loved it so much that we booked almost immediately for 2020 but the pandemic scuppered our plans temporarily. It was a stay in a self-catering cottage with room for up to 6 people so we deemed it low risk and kept the booking as something precious to look forward to. We had intended to have a group of friends going back when we booked initially but, in the end, we just took our friend and bubble buddy Gregg with us.
The view from our cottage at Vale Farm Cottages
We stayed at Vale Farm Cottage outside the town of Brecon (https://valefarmcottages.co.uk). It’s a family run business, with the lovely Emma taking care of guests and her husband and sons taking care of their working farm. It was such a quiet and peaceful place. Our cottage had a fabulous view over the valley, there were house-martins to watch flitting about during the day and we got to watch the sheepdogs herding their flock with amazing accuracy and skill, and at night the bats came swooping out for their aerial display. We felt very secure and safe. We were able to book the pool and hot tub for our exclusive use for an hour and a half each day. The cottage was very well equipped with fridge, freezer, dishwasher etc. Our days were spent browsing bookshops, visiting castles, exploring small towns and eating the amazing locally produced sheep’s milk ice cream from https://www.shepherdsicecream.co.uk, while our evenings were spent reading our newly acquired books, swimming, lazing in the hot tub, catching up on the day’s Hay Festival talks, chatting and watching the bats outside our cottage. It was pretty blissful.
Hay Festival Signs
The Brecon Beacons are jaw droppingly beautiful and we were blessed the most gorgeous weather to go along with the stunning scenery. I love the town of Hay on Wye. It’s a self-professed town of books with 26 different, unique and specialist book shops selling both new and second-hand books. There’s a shop just for crime and horror books (Murder and Mayhem) and a shop specialising in Poetry (The Poetry bookshop). I have particular love for the Hay cinema Bookshop (https://www.haycinemabookshop.co.uk) and Booth’s Books (https://www.richardboothsbookshop.co.uk) both of which I could spend hours in just perusing the books and wandering the maze-like shelves. I’m lucky that my husband doesn’t seem to mind the hours I spent in happy book contemplation. In Brecon town, check out Brecon Chocolates for the most delicious treats https://breconchocolates.co.uk/ and Hop In Beer and Gin for the most varied selection of Gins I've ever seen! They have over 50! https://www.hopinbeerandgin.co.uk/ Their food is pretty great too. To break up our drive home, we stopped off at one of our favourite pubs, the Ragleth Inn. We discovered it when we visited Ludlow and we take any excuse to go there when nearby. It's a cosy quirky building with lots of nooks and crannies. It's dog friendly and they have a big beer garden with tables set up for outdoor dining out the back. They do a delicious Sunday lunch and is very handily, half way home and surrounded by lovely walks. I highly recommend giving them a visit if you're ever in the Little Stretton area. https://theraglethinn.co.uk/. Do pre-book if you can!
Deep contemplation at Booth's Bookshop
The Hay festival I mentioned before is a literary festival that runs each year during May and June. I love it because it’s so varied and interesting. You get the chance to listen to talks with a huge variety of authors and even meet them to get your books signed. We met the amazing Sandi Toksvig, Chris Riddell and Roger McGough the first year we went. The festival has run online in the last two years and the events are free to watch. I’d highly recommend having a look. There really is something for everyone, from the latest fiction to gardening, art, poetry, music, activism, feminism, mental health, environmental issues to science, education, children’s books and comedy. It’s a lovely thing to be part of, even if it’s just online for now. Check it out here: https://www.hayfestival.com/wales/home
I really enjoy travelling, exploring new places and meeting new people. There are so many beautiful places on this island that I have yet to visit. Hubby and I try to get away for a break in the UK once a year, always to somewhere different, sometimes just for a weekend and sometimes for a longer break. We were on the staycation train long before it became trendy! Our first trip away together, before we got married, was to Llandudno for a weekend. I love a British seaside holiday!
The sunshine, ice cream, pebbled beaches, fish and chip stealing seagulls and the rain. It’s all part of the fun!
We stayed in a lovely hotel that has sadly closed down since but their breakfast was stunning and their afternoon tea served on a miniature picnic bench was the first of many afternoon teas that we have tried.
Afternoon tea on a tiny picnic bench
We’ve since had short trips away both nearby and slightly further afield. Some of our other Staycation recommendations aside from Hay -On-Wye and Llandudno, in no particular order include:
1. The British Musical Fireworks championships in Southport in Sept/Oct each year. We’ve gone nearly every year since discovering it. We sometimes stay for one night and sometimes drive over each day for it. It’s a magical spectacle of fireworks set to music with displays over the Fri, Sat and Sun. This year it will be on from the 24th-26th of September. https://www.visitsouthport.com/whats-on/british-musical-fireworks-championship-p169661?fbclid=IwAR2mITc7KQR-PBsW6WQm5MELlso2jyTdiuQQ4Lc88S_oRSinGAUQasaJMDo
2. Anglesey, another lovely seaside holiday location and not too far away. We loved visiting the Halen Mon salt factory.
3. The Medieval Christmas market in Ludlow is brilliant fun and we’ve gone twice, once on our own and another time with a group of friends. Fabulous for getting unusual Christmas presents and getting into the festive spirit. https://www.ludlowmedievalchristmas.co.uk/
4. Wigtown in Scotland, where we spent our first wedding anniversary. It’s a smaller 'Booktown' than Hay but still lovely. Try to get a table at the Pheasant Sorbie. It’s a tiny Italian restaurant in the middle of nowhere. The food was amazing and the chef came out at the end of service to chat to all his guests, much to the chagrin of his wife who shooed him back in to the kitchen to tidy up after himself. We thoroughly enjoyed it. https://www.thepheasantsorbie.com/
5. Lake District, so beautiful all round. We stayed in the super luxurious Cranleigh Hotel, in Bowness On Windermere, in the middle of winter and it was a cosy comfortable delight. They even supply teddy bears and rubber duckies in the rooms.
6. London. We love an occasional trip to the capital to see a show and soak up the atmosphere. There’s always something to see and do in London.
7. Lincoln Steampunk Weekend is wonderful. The whole town gets into the Steampunk spirit and dresses up for the occasion. This will hopefully return in 2022. https://www.asylumsteampunk.co.uk/
8. Cornwall. We got to visit for the first time when lockdown eased last August. We went for 10 days, driving down from Chester and stopping in Bath on the way down and staying in self-catering Airbnb’s along the way. It’s everything I thought it would be. I particularly adored the Minack theatre in Penzance and the rockpools in the tiny town of Mousehole.
Our longer breaks away tend to be in self-catering accommodation. I like to have the option of cooking for ourselves. We normally prep our own breakfast wherever we are staying, indulge in lunch somewhere while we are out and about exploring and then cook dinner for ourselves in the evenings. We do this because it’s cheaper to eat out at lunchtime than for dinner. Plus, it means that the designated driver (Hubby) gets to relax and have a beer or glass of wine with his dinner without worrying about driving us back to our accommodation. Personally, it also gives me the chance to savour cooking, to enjoy it without the pressure of working and cooking for customers. It reminds me of what I love about cooking and feeding those I love, it's cooking for fun! I love seeking out locally produced ingredients and trying local foods. For shorter breaks/weekends away, we’ll often stay in a hotel or B&B, loading up with the breakfast provided to sustain us for the day, have a snack for lunch and then treat ourselves to a meal out in the evenings.
I know how privileged I am to be able to get away at all. With the prices increasing due to demand and the spaces booking up so quickly, I was very happy to have already booked and paid for our trip away two years ago. I doubt we would have been able to find something affordable now. The change of scenery was wonderful but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of getting back into your own bed once you get home again. Being away from it makes me appreciate my home all the more after months of only seeing the same four walls. Distance gives perspective. Coming back to an ecstatic welcome from the kittens is also nice. No aloofness there! No matter where we’ve returned from, it’s always good to be home.
What are your favourite places to visit in the British Isles? Any recommendations welcome! Do you have any money saving tips while staycationing in the UK?
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