It’s almost a year since the Duncan’s went on holiday to Turkey so we were all excited to be going away again, we booked a week’s stay in a lovely private cottage in Durham Dales a beautiful part of the country.

We drove up on Friday which was only supposed to be a 3 hour drive but in reality it was over six hours, the A1 although has probably improved over the years was just hell, lots of roadworks and lorries slowing everything down, it was the hottest day of the year so far and with no air conditioning working (something I have moaned at Paula about for years, she still hasn’t listened!) it made for an uncomfortable trip.

When we did finally arrived we were amazed at the beautiful views and countryside sites, we live in the middle of the country but this was another level.

The place we stayed at was called Bowlees Cottages and was a lovely farm with a bunch of cottages you can hire some of them have their own hot tub and there’s an indoor heated swimming pool in the middle of them that also has a hot tub and a games room which is effectively just a snooker table.

For the first weekend we were in a cottage that didn’t have it’s own hot tub but was absolutely huge and ideal for Djorgee-Ann to crawl around without having to worry about her too much, and that she did!! from Monday to Friday we moved cottages to one that did have it’s own hot tub but wasn’t so friendly for Djorgee-Ann so we had to buy her a walker just to keep her under control.

Aside from generally chilling, enjoying the lovely views, swimming, relaxing in the hot tub daily and the occasional game of snooker Durham is SURROUNDED with various Castles and English Heritage sites something I get free access to as part of my bank account so we took advantage of that and visited a number of the sites all of which were amazing, the kids loved clambering over the ruins of the castles and climbing up the top of the towers too.

There’s also a load of woodland forest areas and a natural waterfall called Highforce Waterfall which we did visit and was amazing, it was a bit of effort with a buggy to get down to so we had to leave the buggy up the top and climb down to the river and rocks at the bottom of the falls, it was well worth the bother though, this natural phenomenon was simply breathe taking and the kids all loved it including DJ.

We generally just ate back at the cottage as the kitchen was good enough to make cooking possible, we did however eat out at a restaurant called Man vs Food Grill House, Kyler’s absolute dream, and boy did he take up the challenge, though I think it beat him, he was STUFFED but the food was great so well worth it if you ever come across one in your travels.