Thinking Japanese

Shakespeare at the Globe in all the world's languages (well, some), and next door at the Tate an art show doing its best to help us spot what's an international language.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to enjoy a long wet weekend learning new languages.  This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).   

Japan - the home of cute and fluffy. Diminutive. Polite. Actually the polar opposite of Japan's most famous female artist - Yayoi Kusama. She was born in 1929, an immense length of time ago, in a town 130 miles away from Tokyo.

Now 83 years old, she's got a major exhibition at Tate Modern (rivalling Damien Hirst's naughty shock show of sharks, jewel-encrusted skulls and butterfly farming).

Kusama spent years living in the States - imagine that leap of faith after what her generation had lived through during World War 2. She seems to have fallen into pop art before the pop artists and is without fail going to impress you.

Nell's 10-year-old friend Anna went to see it and claimed the show was mostly about spots. I was quite surprised to find it's mostly about willies in the early 1960s, although spots definitely become the main focus as she grows older.

It's sad that she's spent so many years living in a Japanese hospital - but the spots keep multiplying, and her output is amazing, and very pricey to buy. Clearly that's the sign of fabulous health care.

See Kusama until 5 June 2012 at the Tate Modern.

The joy of Essex

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Take a mini break to Colchester for culture, oysters, history and views that are often Italinate (even in a damp mid-winter). This post is by Nicola Baird 

Colchester is a market town with a big history. As Camulodunum (translation - fortress of Camulos [a Celtic god of war]) it was once the capital of Britain. It was a vast Roman colony and even now the materials used in the Norman castle give you the impression you are mid Mediterranean, maybe Florence with the warm terracotta tiles on the castle's narrow bricked towers and the strange white elephant watertower, known locally as Jumbo. It's the history that is exciting though: it was viciously destroyed by Boudica and her Celtic allies (who also destroyed London and St Albans); fought over in the Civil War, and has more traditions about oysters than you can serve up with Lee and Perrins....

Despite all these stories it’s not a traditional place to head for a wedding anniversary weekend. Strange because it surely compares with Lille or Bath or Winchester. Indeed the staggered reaction from a friend who used to live there, and my aunt who is based in Essex - but does her best to avoid Colchester - suggested I might regret letting Pete pick the venue. But that's the point of Aroundbritainnoplane, getting to know the UK better.

Turns out that Colchester offers an astonishing history trail (and thanks to the choice of B&B and restaurant Pete and I had a lot of fun too). The Norman castle is the biggest in Britain - because it was built on foundations made by the Romans. The foundations are 3,000 years old, and when the Normans arrived these were already 1,000 years old. When I think about the subsidence in the two Victorian homes I’ve lived in this seems puzzlingly brilliant engineering.

We took a taxi from the station to Trinity Street where we were staying in a house once owned by John Wilbye, the man who invented madrigals in the late 16th century. I always ask taxi drivers the three best things about the place where they work, often with interesting results. The woman we’d picked was an utter down.”There’s nothing good here. It’s just cold. There’s shopping, but I don’t like that, except in Williams & Griffin (a department store run by Fenwick).” When pushed she admitted there were some pubs, but these were occupied by squaddies and students so we wouldn’t want to go there… Well we did, the Purple Dog was fine, and most pubs seem to offer real ale.

Within 100 metres of exiting the taxi – she couldn’t drive to the front door because of the excellent pedestrianised shopping lanes (sort of like Brighton) off the High Street a lady in Tudor garments had invited us to watch a Tudor dance being performed in the CO1 community centre run by a charity that finds things for teenagers to do. Irresistible, and though Tudor dances are reasonably staid, it was fun watching a performance of Ding Dong Merrily on High (originally a dance) and the anachronistic doubletake of spotting a Tudor dancer sit out with mobile and a mug of latte. Could spots like this have inspired Damon Albarn from Blur?

Top 5 highlights of Colchester (other than the zoo)

1. Colchester Castle – stunning Roman collection which is labelled for maximum enjoyment for anyone who knows Essex or interested in Boudica. It costs £6 to enter but offers at least an hour of displays. You can also book a £2.50 tour of the Roman foundations of the Temple of Claudius which Boudica destroyed (along with 20,000 people) and go on to the castle ramparts for a 360 degree view across today's town. 
2. FREE A walk that takes in the old Roman wall by the Hole in the Wall pub and a vast red-brick retired Victorian water tower known as Jumbo. Then head the other way and find the Old Seige House which looks Tudor but has many red painted bullet marks on its inside and outside walls – marks from the conflict between Cromwell’s troops and the Royalists. Finish off with a patrol of the incredible new arts centre, Firstsite. In fact Firstsite might be a reason to go to Colchester - it's as good as The Baltic up in Newcastle upon Tyne.
3. There are some nice parks, including the castle gardens which also has the FREE toy museum beside it, all a few strides from the shopping streets. Look carefully between and in stores and you’ll see Roman memories everywhere. We ate a good dinner (with frighteningly speedy service) at the Lemon Tree which boasts a massive Roman wall between the dining rooms.
4. A place to get curious about: allegedly Humpty Dumpty was a canon parked at St Mary in the Wall during the Civil War conflict (find it near the Mercury theatre). And there's the Dutch Quarter where in 1806 Jane Taylor is claimed to have dreamt up Twinkle Twinkle Little Star... and it's old name, Camulodunum may have been the basis for the nursery rhyme Old King Cole. As for the TOWIE craze back in Brentwood (and the nation's sitting rooms), well I could see no evidence other than a canvas tote in a super tacky shop that boasted "I've been vajazzled".
5. Pick the right Sunday in December (11 Dec 2011) and then you can enjoy the Christmas market which has the high street closed to traffic. 

More info about things to do in Colchester here. More info about Colchester at wikipedia here (including references in two Dr Who episodes, Moll Flanders and 1984!)

Here be dragons (aka griffins)

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to find fantasy beasts via a trip through London. This post is by Nicola Baird 


I love visting the City's griffins. The picture above looks rather like a sacrifice, although it really shows Nell trying to climb on to one of the City's guardians between Temple and Blackfriars tube. Using the old I-spy game a griffin deserves at least 10 points (a pigeon would be 2, a cathedral 6), and there are plenty of griffins to find in the Square Mile, so a good way of exploring London as you look around the protest site at St Pauls.

Griffin ID please
Look for the body of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle and furry horse ears & what do you see? Scales. Clearly the griffins guarding the City are actually dragons. I doubt such a mish-mash beastie could ever have been real - although the Greeks and ancient Egyptians made statues of them. As for dragons, I've always assumed they are a folk lore memory of dinosaurs (or at any rate dino bones).

More info about Griffins on Wikipedia here. And if you want to remind yourself about I-spy books, then look here.

If it's London dragons you want though, then go to the National Gallery and enjoy Uccello's St George and the Dragon - a slaying of what appears to be the lady in pink's pet.

Waving not drowning

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 11, and Nell, 8, went travelling around Britain in 2008. Now they're back but still trying to make trips with the lightest possible carbon footprint. Here's how ...

Can you see the blue noses and clotheses (from right to left: Lola and Nell. Ellen, 14, and Andy seen here back home after a day of citizen protest)? There's 20,000 others on the Wave - a march across central London organised by Stop Climate Chaos to highlight the need for politicians to do something about climate change.

Actually the police say 20,000 and the organisers (including Belfast and Glasgow) tell us it is 50,000. Whichever number is correct it is a lot.

Lola, Nell and I have done something similar together enough times to feel that marching for climate justice is one of the tasks in the run up to Christmas. It's our form of spiritual preparation, but this time there are many more people involved. We meet a man who'd come up from Gloucester on his own, see buses from Wales and Dorset, get surrounded by church groups and admire the crowds on TV that set off from Hyde Park after a rousing set of talks. We even have friends staying who have travelled down from Hexham, Northumberland (see pic). Sorting out climate change is one thing, but it is also fantastic to be walking along a traffic free route from (roughly) Green Park tube to Lambeth Bridge.

Next week we will find out if the big turn out does impress politicians at the Cophenhagen meeting who have to seal somekind of carbon dioxide emissions deal.

Pre-march preparation takes Lola, Nell and I to the Royal Academy's pop-up expo on art and climate. It's called Earth: a changing world and was stunning. there's a man futilely making an island in the sea; there's a barbcued polar bear bone turned into a diamond, there's epitaphs and landscape pix and wit. There's Tracey Emin, obviously. And a video of black rain. And performance art with a rapping conculsion. Find it around the back of the Royal Academy (at the old Museum of Mankind, 6 Burlington Gardens). If you're an RA member it's free - and there are no queues. Even if Anish Kapoor, the main attraction is worth seeing, I really don't think I'd be willing to queue when I could enjoy Earth with no crowds at all.

The art show helps us focus. It's clear what's going on worldwide isn't good, and it's clear that we don't know the half of it. Why do factory workers dressed in pink pack pinky chicken? Why do rich Israeli men try to offroad dunes in vast 4x4s? Why are the rubbish piles in China covered in nets and shaped to look like romantic Chinese landscape - or have shrines on them? We also owe a great debt to the educational programe Cape Farewell that takes artists to the Arctic for a look-see (aka cultural response) that seems to inspire astonishing creativity about climate change and the state of our world now.

After the art we join the crowds with our friends Andrew and his daughter Ella, 9. The kids daub blue face paint on nose and cheeks and then get a chant going which peps up our bit of the march. They only stop when we reach Lambeth Bridge. And then at 3pm with Parliament encircled via two bridges (and the climate camp activists apparently camping out or avoiding arrest under Oliver Cromwell's toes) everyone waves their blue hands. And waves, and waves again because we're rioting for austerity measures that will give everyone in the world a better chance.

Meanwhile the news focuses on the 20 million Bangladeshi people who may have to leave their country within 50 years because of sea level rise. David Cameron lashes out at the climate sceptics (particularly David Davis in his own party) and Barak Obama finally agrees to pop into Copenhagen on the first day. See here.

This Saturday we've done something big, and the signs that it may have helped are good. But perhaps that's because we so want them to be. As for Pete, he insisted on going to the West Ham v Man U game (result a shameful home loss of 0:4) but sort of redeemed himself for a no march show by getting climate change mentioned in his fan's view in the Observer, see here.

Climate refugees on wobbly bridge

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 11, and Nell, 8, spent three happy months during summer 2007 travelling around Britain. Now we're home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint.

Friends arrive during half term for city sightseeing so we take them on London's best visitor route, the number 4 bus down to St Paul's Cathedral. Nearby the wobbly bridge over the Thames has sprouted mini tents. It's an idea by the German artist Hermann Josef Hack for Oxfam's Here & Now campaign timed to coincide with two-day EU heads of state and . The art installation is in seven cities including Amsterdam and Brussels.

Lola, Nell and Xander (now 10 and born in land-locked Zimbabwe) stretch out amongst the tents and get snapped while I calculate that the tents are 20cm high - just about the height the sea's already risen since 1900. You can find out more about what sea level rise means in the excellent new book for kids Gaia Warriors, by Nicola Davies which is published by Walker Books, £9.99, buy from Amazon.

20cm doesn't look much, but for countries like Tuvalu, or the Maldives where land is barely 1m above sea level this is serious stuff. No surprise that the big London march timed for the Copenhagen COP on Saturday December 5 is to be called The Wave. Find out more here.

Not everyone is impressed by story campaigns. I overhear an irritated woman on the bridge complaining that someone will break their ankle on the cardboard tents. She doesn't lack imagination, but is clearly having trouble with empathy. Does she know that The Maldives has a dynamo head of state, who has already conducted a cabinet meeting underwater to alert the world to his country's sinking future (lots more about the Maldives plight here). To date Tuvalu is less good at climate change PR but the funniest book I've ever read, Tales of the Tikongs, is by Epeli Hau'ofa from Tuvalu so clearly there are skilled wits on the islands who could if they wanted to do so.


What a loss it will be to have either of these countries turned Atlantis.

Another brick in the wall

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell love to travel - without racking up our carbon footprint. This weekend trip took in two institutions - the Queen's most visited castle home at Windsor and the poshest of the boys' boarding schools, Eton. Post by Nicola


It's where they train boys to become young men. It costs an arm and a leg and relies on a mixture of great teachers, tradition, snobbery and parents willingness to pay up, pay on. Eton is only for boys, a great shame as Lola thought she'd like to go there... and now she has, but just for a day trip to see my godson.

Here Nell, Lola and George look left towards Eton's famous wall - a bit bellying but still used for the inexplicable (aka unique) wall game. The tree with the white band that hasn't been hit for 200 years is on the far right.

And then around Windsor Castle where we saw some of the most wonderful portraits of Charles 1, Henry VIII and the 13 year old Elizabeth 1. As with all the royal palaces (or historic palaces) it's expensive to do a tour but you can reuse your ticket for the next year.

Lola and Nell were impressed by the world's biggest carpet beneath the world's biggest mahogany table. I liked the banks of spring flowers by the waterfall beneath the towers. And the magnificent dolls' house which we even bought a guide book for, and has proved a pleasure to flick through.








Windsor is a crowded town, and not just filled with tourists, but it was a lovely day trip even if we felt in such an English environment there was no way we could pretend we were anywhere else. Now that's something that's never happened before.

In France by default

How do you travel the world without amassing a huge carbon footprint? Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell have found a way. This time we're off to France via Crystal Palace, south London.

I always moan that I won't go south of the River Thames (showing me to be spoilt, misguided and lacking an A-Z), but somehow last Saturday involved a journey from up north to Crystal Palace and back; and later on from up north to Brixton and back. Quel horreur! (excuse my French and spelling).

You see with St Pancras station so close I've been revelling in the fact that Paris is now nearer than Clapham. It's definitely nearer than Crystal Palace. However the house warming we've been invited to is in SE19 so, reluctantly, I decide we're going to make a family trip. Passports optional.

Of course the party is a joy. Lots of delicious warm cider, fabulous eats, kids for the kids to play with, grown ups to catch up with, views to die for out of every window (including a big dog fox in the garden). And it turns out that this may not be France, but it is a petit France. Jess and Tim's friendly neighbour is not just French but a Francophile Crystal Palace tour guide. It turns out that the Impressionist Pissarro used to paint around here - including Sydenham station.

While the French novelist Emile Zola escaped imprisonment for his "libellous" reporting of the controversial Dreyfus case (which kicked off in 1894 and lasted until 1906) by coming to London and staying at Queen's Hotel, 122 Church Road nearby (and not far from Fox Hill, see photo*). Zola lived at the hotel from 1898-99, a residence remembered by a blue plaque. I'd love to find out what he thought of London then. You can find out more about Dreyfus and Zola's masterful newspaper piece, J'accuse here.

The all-things-French base may have moved towards South Ken some decades (centuries!) ago, but on the right day (30C in the shade sipping dry white wine talking philosophy and the latest doings of Jean-Yves Katalan) Crystal Palace might easily be mistaken for France.

And actually it didn't take that long to get here, thanks to the overland from Victoria station.

* The snap is of one of the area's most desirable streets - prettily named, and with a woodland walk just strides away.

Do you speak another language?

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 10, and Nell, 7, like travelling around Britain on public transport (don’t laugh). We spent three happy months exploring during summer of 2007 but now we’re home, you can still join us for the occasional sightseeing - plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

At the school summer fair we had a storytelling tent for families to tell stories, or read stories or sing songs in their home language. A place to be proud of your mother tongue.

It would have been a runaway success if it had been too hot or too wet.

As it was the tent was host to nine different languages – Arabic, French, Hebrew, Nigerian (Hausa and Yaruba), Solomon Islands Pijin , Spanish (Castilian and Latin American) and Turkish - all enjoyed by children who wanted to chill out or simply listen. Watching the faces of the children hearing a home language in a public place was amazing. One little girl's grin was wider than the Cheshire cat's.

This pic is of our Yaruba reader sharing Heads, shoulders, knees and toes with her audience.

Winds of change

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 10, and Nell, 7, like travelling around Britain on public transport (don’t laugh). We spent three happy months exploring during summer of 2007 but now we’re home, you can still join us for the occasional sightseeing - plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

If only the winds of change could speed through Zimbabwe in a safe and peaceful way. Here’s a stunning beaded wind turbine (really looks better on your table than in this shot), created by one of Zimbabwe’s versatile and talented craftspeople, which I hope to sell to raise funds for one community group there at the Gillespie Park Festival, London, N4 on Sunday 14 September from 1-6pm. Come use your change to buy a beaded beast or turbine and help a beleaguered country.

Horses in the high street

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home, but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

I've found a simple way to entertain myself - and the kids. Walk around London talking to the statues. This Elisabeth Frink bronze horse in Piccadilly gave us all the sort of energy boost that a packet of sweets can provide. Not all Frink's sculptures offer such free enjoyment though. Next trip we plan to hunt down all the statues in Charlie Fletcher's clever kids' story, Stoneheart, many of which can be seen using the Number 4 bus through the City.

First Emperor's warriors

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home, but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

The terracotta army of 7,000 bigger than life size warriors that was built to guard their meglamaniac boss in the afterlife is an obvious wonder of the world.

It’s younger than the Pyramids and Stonehenge, but older than the Colosseum, Hadrian’s Wall or the Mayan pyramids in Mexico. The show at the British Museum is constantly sold out but after getting on an email alert list I managed to acquire tickets for a new year’s eve eve slot (and as it runs until 6 April 2008 there must be a chance to go). Unfortunately Nell didn't appreciate this show was so special, so I had to go around it too fast, but we still managed to get to know some of the figures, and think about how they would have looked painted. We also enjoyed the seated figures (musicians) entertaining the cranes and other bird life on the artificial river.

I know a few 13 year olds – lovely as they are they also like sleeping and Facebook more than running a war machine - so it is even more of a mystery how the young Emperor managed to boss everyone around, keep winning battles and not get assassinated. He died of natural causes when he was 49, a very distinguished age for the time especially as he was constantly at war with the neighbouring states.

The Emperor is the architect of modern China but his legacy to the world has been a mix of wonder – at these figures only relatively recently dug from a farmer’s field – and suspense because the main tomb will not be excavated until technology can do it with the least harm. And that, apparently, is not in our lifetimes. The best we can do is go and see this amazing taster of what is already excavated in China and simply enjoy the unique details – from beard and hair styles to clothing - on everyone.

Three legs good

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during the summer of 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint… (even with three legs, see pic)

The Isle of Man's special symbol is a three-legged wheel, but at the courtyard of the Royal Academy in Picadilly there's currently a vast metal version of a Three Legged Buddha (with one leg resting on a handsome but detached head the size of a Wendy House) by the Chinese artist Zhang Huan.

Lola and I visited the Isle of Man in 2006, via a ferry that left from Liverpool. We thought it was an amazing place even before we appreciated that it is its own country, ie, not part of the UK, and has a Parliament that's been operational since the Vikings were busy. It also specialises in fairies, no-tail Manx cats, TT races and the sort of scenery that makes film crews regular visitors.

Upside down art

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during the summer of 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint… (pic is us doing a London day out upside down)

The adults walk around the Royal Academy gallery ignoring Lola & Nell's noisy disbelief - the pictures by Georg Baselitz are the wrong way up. Nell points out an eagle with his wings below his feet, and Lola gawps at a portrait. When Nell was in Reception she drew ffurg staog yllib eerht eht* - and the title - this way around and her delightful teacher took me aside for a private word. What would she have done to the venerable, clearly slightly crazy art hero Georg? This show is a must for anyone who wants to think outside convention, and your kids will love its rule breaking.

*the three billy goats gruff

Walking the bounds

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during the summer of 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint…

Pete and Nell were at a 7th birthday party (excitingly kids’ parties are no longer E Number fests they have transformed into a chance to provide an education boost. This one, for instance, had a science session which saw all the kids queuing up to get an electric shock!) which meant that Lola and I were able to spend a happy Sunday afternoon remembering routes around London on the pretext of finding Angostura Bitters in Fortnum and Masons, Piccadilly.

Our first stop off was the RA for a whistlestop tour of the Antiquaries in Britain show (1707-2007) and then on via St James’ church (which has solar panels) and Jermyn Street to restless Leicester Square, down past the back of the National Gallery and into Trafalgar Square where Lola bravely shimmied up a lion under Nelson’s Column. while I looked out for the 30,000 cyclists (most in red shirts) who'd taken part in the capital's biggest mass bike ride on mostly car-closed streets, the London Freewheel. There were plenty of cyclists around but though it was Sunday there was a lot of traffic in this area too, which made me glad that I hadn't forced the children out on their bikes as getting home would have been more than up hill. (And at the time I didn't even feel like a killjoy!)

We then walked up St Martin’s Lane dodged left down an alley to Charing Cross Road by the best value and tastiest eat-in falafel bar, Gaby’s, before taking the tube home.

It was exhausting – I just can’t shed my visitor mentality and find there’s just so much to see and do in London even if you're just looking for a loaf of bread, and some cocktail ingredients...

Saving Brass in Leeds

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Essential Leeds – a tourist guide available from www.visitleeds.co.uk – offers a guide to 24 hours in the city either splashing out or reigning in. Inspired I adapted the reigning in version – which involved a lot of eating plus strolls in Roundhay Park and late night live music at The Cockpit, Swinegate – for daytime with kids.

The bus station (a 30min ride in from Wakefield) is right by Kirkgate Market which has more than 800 stalls. I knew it was good but was stunned by the range of goodies sold. It feels very continental – a Sunday in Lille even – wandering around the market where we goggled at fruit, African home foods, a Polish deli, baji stall, cheese counters, olive and nut emporiums, embroidery kits and wrapping paper. Did we buy? Yes three buttons (at 25p each) and two 100g bags of sweeties for 80p each. It’s all on line now too, so you can visit virtually if you want to at http://www.leedsmarket.com/.

Next stop was Friends of the Earth’s Leeds office , also in Kirkgate, which provided a nice cup of tea and directions to Leeds Art Gallery. Here we slithered across the grandest tiled hall (lost for 50 years behind bookshelves and now a cafe); used the free internet access at next door’s library and enjoyed the collection of pictures. The girls particularly liked Anthony Gormley’s bigger than lifesize figure made out of bricks and then did their own abstract works at the art cart area upstairs. Next door is the Henry Moore Institute with an excellent craft shop – it's one of the venues where you can buy real art by real artists from as little as #45.

On our way back to the bus we were entertained by buskers near Albion Street and then spent a happy quarter of an hour washing and rewashing hands at Lush.

Total cost of day: return bus tickets #7, mementoes (those buttons!) 75p, grapes #1.40 = happiness for less than a tenner. We are also very lucky at the moment to be staying in a lovely house in Wakefield gratis (though we would like to do some babysitting!), many thanks to Mary & Adrian.

Art girls

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Here are two fine pix of Nell and Lola at Wakefield Art Gallery doing their own work - inspired by the city's famous sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore etc (or maybe just bored?).

Andy Goldsworthy rocks

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (the Goldsworthy tribute band pic is on the right)

I’ve waited about six years to see it, but when Nell was told we were off to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park http://www.ysp.co.uk/ she had a meltdown. Half an hour later she’d forgotten and was skipping to the bus which runs hourly, even on a Sunday, from Wakefield to West Bretton and a short (unsigned) walk into the park.

It turns out that Nell is not the only child to disagree violently with her mum. On the 435 an only just still blonde woman, with a disconcerting bruise and cut on her right cheek, chats to us about life then and now in west Yorkshire and the famous sculpture park.

“My daughter loves it up there, but I just see three men with holes in them. It’s target practice not art,” she says happily as the bus passes The Station Pub and into the countryside again. “But when we were young we’d spend all day up there, looking for frogs. It never used to rain then. These days I think the sun has died that's why I always take this mac...” With her commentary, at turns painful and then delightful, the journey passes fast. Thanks also to her directions we enter the park at the controversial spot - Jonathan Borofsky’s tree-height Molecule Man 1+1+1. The girls siddle into a photographic spot by it, but as I snap they start squabbling, just like the giant men arguing above.

Tempers calm after a reviving hot chocolate so we walk to the Andy Goldsworthy’s rooms in the Underground Gallery. Here Nell undergoes a cathartic change. “This is cool,” she says breathing heavily as we walk into the second room, done out as an inverse bird’s nest made from sweet chestnut coppice carefully slotted together. In the third she’s the one to spot that the cracking clay is held together with hair – from users of Barnsley, Wakefield and Huddersfield hairdressers during Christmas 2006. And in the fourth Nell stares for nearly 10 still minutes at the curtain of horse chestnut stalks in front of us. Assuming these wonderful, and increasingly fragile, pieces don’t collapse you too can see the show until 6 January 2008 http://www.ysp.co.uk/ and also http://www.cc.gla.ac.uk/goldsworthy. The exhibition catalogue - celebrating his 30 year connection with YSP - provides an excellent future memory jog too if you are willing to part with #15 for it, Andy Goldsworthy at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (or just borrow it from me).

It’s still raining when we emerge from this bit of the show but Lola, Nell and I don't care; Goldsworthy makes us want to reconnect with every one of the elements. Which is why we also head to the Longside Gallery (a barn) where Goldsworthy has created his "shit" work: a river window from cow dung (genius!); a series of sheep feet canvases and a mud ball from the creation clean-up. He's also experimented, Damian Hirst style, with blood droplets on snow from a roadkill hare, and a deer.

Nell, ever bloodthirsty, adores these pieces too. I hope this doesn’t indicate a scary mother-daughter future ahead.

Best museum ever

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

“Excuse me, this is the best museum I’ve ever been to,” said Lola very sweetly to the man on the desk at Tullie House in Carlisle. He beamed and then helped supply the date that Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed at M&S – 1745 – to key in and enable Lola to lift the sword out of the stone on the first floor galleries. Later on we looked for the plaque and were amused to see that Butcher Cumberland had also stayed there, a year later.

At Tullie House www.tulliehouse.co.uk the kids got in free (they were even given a free gift and a sticker when we arrived), the collection is fantastic and brings the area to life. When we left we’d tried out a Roman saddle (they may have worked out how to build roads but they didn’t know how to do stirrups, tsk, tsk); fired a Roman stone shot; found out a lot more about the horrors of living in the Marches (ie, the Borders) during the time of the Reivers from a specially made film; seen a leather post bag hooked on to a train; climbed through a Roman mine and eyeballed various stuffed animals that are distinctive to the uplands and dales of this gorgeous area. And the children got a free gift when they arrived. You must go if you are ever in Carlisle – and don’t forget to look at the Cursing Stone (which I’ve written about before) and have now gone back and eyeballed for the second time. Carlisle is so interesting I feel that I could spend a lot more time there, though I’m sure part of that is pure nostalgia from having a VSO boss who came from somewhere around there. Nell had insisted we went back because she wanted to see the guns at Carlisle Castle and during our second walk around it we ended up in the local militia museum getting a much more English view of the Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie problems (Catholic absolutists according to one of the curators, a Revier named Forster with an r). I still can’t believe that back in June I’d never heard of the troublesome Reivers.