In Dorset? I’d recommend it to anyone…

Well that was quite a week…

I think it’s fair to say that 2023 has been quite the year so far. The arrival of a third child and all of the madness that ensues; the highs and lows of thinking we’ve found a new house, loosing it, and then trying to sell our house again in the middle of a 4th trimester; the train line that I use to commute to work collapsing (semi-literally: the bridge south of Oxford needed months of repairs) and then once reopening no longer having direct trains from my nearest station to where I work: feel like they’ve all compounded to make this year a memorable one at least. A break was very much needed.

I had booked a block of annual leave in the summer originally thinking that we’d be using that to move and settle into our new house. Obviously that’s no longer the case and I’ve (optimistically) held back a week of what I’d originally booked towards moving later in the year, but it did mean that I had a week booked with nothing planned. We researched last minute and reasonable low budget holidays that would work for a young family. We love camping and would happily have gone again but thought it probably not wise with a sub-3-month-old baby. But we stumbled across a couple of sites with ‘glamping’ yurts which weren’t too expensive and would give us a feel for the great outdoors without being too far from the necessary amenities.

There were a couple of locations that would have worked and surprisingly still had availability with only a few weeks notice. We chose one down in Dorset about an hour from the south coast of Weymouth and Swanage; places both my wife and I have known a bit from previous parts of our life but still somewhere to explore. The place we stayed was called Caalm Camp (https://dorsetyurtcampsite.co.uk), an ex-dairy farm with 6 Mongolian Yurts set up permanently on the site. We didn’t really know anything about it other than what we could see on the website before we booked and were pleasantly surprised. The Yurts are bigger than they look and comfortably slept all 5 of us with room to relax and even cook basic food on a hob. Each yurt also has a log burner in the middle although they were well insulated and while they got cool at night were never really ‘cold’. We lit a fire a couple of times early in the morning to help keep the little ones warm but usually by the time we were getting up it was too warm even when well managed to keep it low.

There was a communal kitchen which was well equipped and every tent has its own cupboard and fridge. The site also had a ‘common room’ for want of a better description with a sofa area and TV and then several tables and chairs for dining. We used this a couple of times in bad weather but generally it was nicer to be in and around the yurt. There was also a barn with a games room containing a pool table and table tennis, something I thought we’d use much more than we did, but actually we generally kept ourselves to busy to really have time to do it justice.

We found last year that having a full itinerary was actually a much easier way to manage the kids than having lots of downtime so we planned a similarly full week this time, knowing that we could scale it back if needed after the first few days. It meant it was pretty full-on for us but the kids loved it and slept well for being wiped out each day. Then each evening was spent playing around the campsite while we cooked and/or looked after Griffin (the littlest one). I really enjoyed cooking out over a BBQ most nights and then, when time allowed, sitting around a log fire before bed. The kids were brilliant with all the various routines and processes that camping requires and Piglet was very happy to make friends with the (few) other kids on the site. The only tension point for me, usually, was just getting us all up and out in the morning for whatever we had planned. By the time we had organised breakfast, washed up, washed/brushed the kids, put suntan lotion on and got dressed it was always much later in the day than I’d hoped. And on the days that I’d lit the fire and let the yurt get hot I was often a bit prickly at these times!

We managed to get to the beach a couple of times: we caught the steam train park and ride to Swanage to build sandcastles and then drove down to Portland Bill lighthouse for a tour. I think I used to go to Swanage as a young child but I can’t really remember it and my wife’s distant relative was the first lighthouse keeper at Portland Bill. As usual lunches out weren’t the easiest: we had a couple of failed attempts to get fish and chips with some batter having milk and others cooking in soya oil but we found a wonderful coffee shop/cafe (Java Independent Coffee House) in Swanage hidden away in a back street which were super helpful with guidance over what they could do for us and we managed to get a dairy-free menu from the cafe next to the lighthouse (https://thelobsterpotportland.co.uk). In both cases the food was really good.

Getting the steam train to Swanage was a lovely thing to do with the kids. It takes you straight into the centre of town and we could all be together rather than one of us driving. We did stress ourselves out a bit though by leaving it a bit tight to catch the service at both ends! The lighthouse was quite strict about minimum heights for children and not carrying them which ruled Dragon and Griffin out but actually my vertigo wouldn’t have let me enjoy the tour anyway so I was quite happy to leave that to the other two. By all accounts they thought it was great.

On the other two days: we took a trip to Stourhead, a beautiful National Trust property with apparently “world famous” landscaped garden, and went to Moors Valley Country Park. I’ve been to Stourhead a few times before and there is a wonderful walk around the lake. I also took a very atmospheric photo of my wife there many, many years ago and it was lovely to recreate that with her and all three kids. I was impressed with the stamina of the oldest two (obviously Griffin just got carried) and there was minimal grumbling as we walked for a couple of hours. I think there was enough to see and explore to keep them interested the whole way round. Moors Valley Country Park I completely underestimated. I hadn’t realised quite how much there would be to do there and we completely ran out of time to do everything we wanted when we were there. We’d originally gone there to do a ‘zog trail’, something we’ve done a few times at various Forestry Commission locations, but the adventure playground was great and we hadn’t even realised there was a miniature railway there. Sadly we just missed the last train and there were a few tears shed over our mismanagement of that but it didn’t stop it being a great day out. I just wish we’d got there earlier.

Dragon is certainly turning out to be quite adventurous. She climbs things that are clearly not meant for 1-year-olds and just want to do anything that Piglet can do (and more, without his caution or sensibility at times). But it was really interesting to see her reaction to the Go Ape set up which we walked through and past multiple times. She was clearly jealous and wanted to join the people up in the trees. It was probably good that she never saw the junior Go Ape set up as we would never have had time for that. But we’ll certainly need to take her to one at some time soon. Even at Stourhead she was desperate to climb any tree she could and where Piglet is constrained by his own risk appetite, Dragon seems only to be constrained by what she can physically do – which is constantly less of a barrier than I expect!

An added bonus at Moors Valley Country Park was that we were able to get vegan, soya-free ice cream in various flavours. Something which has been almost impossible outside vegan Magnums up to now. They did Dole Soft Serve ice cream, something I’d not heard of before but we could try multiple flavours (and did!). What was doubly good is that the guy serving us was super hot on allergens and knew straight away that the cones had soya flour (nearly always the case but not necessarily widely known) and could reel off the flavours we could have. He still checked things to be certain but it was so reassuring to be served with confidence. I commented on this and he said I’d be surprised how often they get asked. In the end we went for chocolate in one tub and pineapple vanilla swirl in the other. It was pretty hard to get them back off the kids once they’d tried them. It’s also worth a note that while the cafe didn’t have quite the same level of allergen confidence, they did have a comprehensive allergen menu I could look through and were very happy to get the manager to discuss our options.

Our last day was a bit of a rush to get out with all our stuff and people in time for the checkout time (something we didn’t quite manage but was clear that they were relaxed about). There was a lot of sadness to be going and we could easily have stayed for twice as long without regretting it. We’d planned to go to a nearby farm shop for a coffee straight after leaving and then use that as an excuse to scope them out for whether we’d be able to grab an early lunch there. But unfortunately there had been some sort of traffic accident just outside and so the road was closed. As such we drove in the general direction of home looking for somewhere else to stop soon for drinks and hopefully food. The place we found was a country pub just east of Shaftsbury that seem to started focussing on doing barista coffee as a side-hustle, called the Rising Sun. We turned up in the pouring rain and were pretty wet just from the short sprint from the car to the entrance and so were quite happy to settle down in this quiet comfy inn. As is always so much easier with a cute, calm baby in your arms, I started talking to the owners after we’d organised our drinks and found out a bit of history about them and the place. They were very friendly and made us feel very much at home without over-the-top ‘customer service’, if that makes any sense. I explained our allergies and that we’d ideally get some food too but only if it made sense from what they had available and the allergy information to hand. The were super accommodating and gave us the allergen matrix to look through but also started coming up with adjustments or substitutions they could do to make various meals work. They actually knew that the bread they normally stock had soya but they happened to have a different loaf which would be suitable for us. They even managed to find some vegan spread for sandwiches. They had a selection of books and board games which we all enjoyed playing with while we drank our coffee and order and waited for our food. The food itself was fairly basic pub fare. Nothing exceptional but perfectly tasty and mostly just all the more welcome for the flexibility offered to accommodate us. It ended up being a really welcome break on the drive home and we made sure to let them know how grateful we were.

Our last stop before getting home was to see a little-known place called Stonehenge. Despite living most of my life within a couple of hours of it, I’d actually never been and we opted to walk the 2km route from the visitor centre rather than catching the shuttle bus to build up the anticipation. A little part of me was hoping for something more like a spiritual experience in visiting it (I certainly got the sensation of something significant when I visited Sagrada Familia in Barcelona many years ago). And while I didn’t get that it’s certainly awe inspiring that something like that could have been build in a time before the sort of technology you’d want to use now. I think the kids appreciated the significance of it too. It helps to have a history teacher in the family for these sort of experiences anyway!

It was a wonderful week with lots of various highlights for each of us. I got to spend some really quality time with all of our family and after a few months that have been so chaotic that we’ve not always had the time to communicate thoroughly, I feel like this holiday did a world of good. But it certainly wasn’t the relaxing, feet-up holiday it might have been and if anything I feel more tired than I did before we started. I managed to clock up nearly 130k steps over the week which is ~50k more than usual but deep down both the exercise and the family time was well worth it. Now we just need to sell the house and move!

Toodlepips x