Essex discoveries part 1

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell love travelling around the UK. Here's some ideas to fill your holidays and keep your carbon footprint low. This post about Essex is by Nicola

It's a swap thing: Pete was born in Herts, and I was born in Essex. But he's all Essex humour and I'm the posh bird from Hertfordshire. Although we didn't meet until I was 29 years old for a time we'd both lived pretty much equi-distance from Bishop's Stortford, the Hertfordshire market town that protects us from Essex. Or vice versa. Anyway, ahhh.

Nell, 9, is intrigued by Essex, she's hardly ever been there and yet there's a map on our corridor wall with rings around all the places that are family important (and yes, Nasty and Ugley, High Easter and Cold Christmas - we lost control of the highlighter pen!). And so the plan is get-to-know Essex better. It also means we've got a travel theme and Nell hopefully won't feel so cheated by her friends and their climate-bashing tales of "when I was at the airport...".

We've started well this Essex-themed Easter holidays well with a quick walk through Hatfield Forest, just outside Bishop's Stortford. Hatfield Forest is a remnant of the Great Essex Forest, mimics a medieval working woodland and is now run by the National Trust. As an added bonus it's opposite Stansted Airport working as a seriously green lung by the bypass and perimeter fence. Using a very easy to follow map we walked around the lake created by the one-time owner, a Hugenot refugee, who built a shell house for picnics - the shells (see pic left) are from the Caribbean and Africa, brought to the UK in the ballast of the ships that created such wealth for some of the old families (there's clearly a link to slavery here). The nice volunteer guide inside the Shell House encouraged the girls to play with these shells... And I swear I spotted the shells of African land snails too...

A family hunt
Next stop was just outside Great Dunmow (a place Pete could remember his Dad recalling the Saracen's Head and his mum rolling her eyes at the metropolis) for Great Garnetts farm by Barnston. This is where his dad, Denis May, had his first tenancy farm, eventually moving to the other side of Essex when offered more land for his dairy herd.

The big house at Great Garnetts was Elizabethan, with tall chimneys. There's still an interesting arch in or out of the stable yard and we hope to find out more when we go to the farmers' market held just about once a month (except August when everyone's too busy harvesting) - in 2010 they are on the 2nd Saturday of each month so try 10 April, 8 May, 12 June, 10 July, 11 Sep, 9 Oct and 13 Nov.

When Pete's mum, Sheila, moved in to the semi-detached farm cottage (see pic above) there was no heating except wood fires. I think she said there was no water as well. It must have been terrible for her especially looking after a four year old and Pete for his first eight months. No wonder he puts up with the cold... The farm cottages look picture perfect now and I think Lola and Nell were a tad jealous of the three children rolling outside with a pack of black labradors.

We also went to the pub that Denis used to walk to after his chores were finished. Lucky for us The Spotted Dog, in Bishop's Green (tel: 01245 231598), a lovely old thatched place, had just been redone and opened on 1 April (five days ago) as a gastro pub which still served real ale. We had our dog, so we ate on a bench outside, thinking about Denis all those years ago propping up the bar with a few old farmer friends. Maybe.

It's an irony that Denis felt so strongly that organic was a fad, and now even the old pubs are going all foodie and his old farm has recreated itself as a farmers' market. Obviously it's not all organic, but the locally grown element - pork and turkey - is key to this farming renaissance.

Pirates at home

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell love to travel but stay off planes to keep their carbon footprint down. Here's how they satisfy their passion for travel

OK I admit that for ships in the Gulf of Aden the Somalian pirates are a problem, but it's hard not to want to be a pirate at fancy dress parties, imaginging a look that mixes Russell Brand's attitude, Captain Flint's reputation and Jack Sparrows' stunning looks - and that's just the girls. So we've squeezed into our tiny garden a pirate experience - floating platform, Jolly Roger, pondlife views - to enable us to take off on the high seas whenever we want.

To my surprise the first voyage never made it to the Caribbean, instead we saw off kling ons on the starboard bow and then detoured via night sky constellations until we heard someone like Long John Silver tapping down the street, got frighted and sneaked back inside for a bedtime read of Treasure Island.

Treasure island

All adventurers yearn to have a successful trip to Treasure Island. This post is from Nicola.

Lola and Nell figured taking on the landlubbers (Swabs!) on the tube would be the quickest way to collect treasure. I think they only resisted because Lola (aka Long John Silver) was using an umbrella as a crutch, and it just doesn't make as lethal a weapon. The photo shows Lola with her friend Freya dressed up ready to thrill at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket's, newest Stevenson adaptation of Treasure Island. You can book tickets here.

If you don't read the book carefully you'd assume Captain Flint - the evilest pirate of them all, easily outranking Blackbeard and the modern pirate ransom-takers in Sudan - hid his treasure in the Carribean.

But my family thinks this is wrong. Yes there are swamps and it's steamy hot. But there's also pine trees and such a tall tree (from which the skeleton points the way)that it couldn't be anything but a Giant Redwood. In other words is Treasure Island along Vancouver's carefuly mapped Candian coastline?

Parrots of the Caribbean

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

Inspired by Mary Poppins I took the girls and my mum to see Treasure Island at the King’s Head theatre pub on Boxing Day. It was a fun show (on until 13 Jan 2008) that the four actors performed with a great deal of energy, and at time brilliantly. By the end we all wanted to be Jim Hawkins, or the clever (but evil) Capt Long John Silver. Lola felt she’d hit the big time too, thanks to being invited on stage to sit as still as the skeleton that points the way to the treasure.

Treasure Island is the original boys’ own adventure written in 1883 by Robert Louis Stephenson (who ended his life on Samoa). With its tale of Captain Flint's piracy, treasure maps, an X that marks the site of our fortunes, and the scary black spot that even the pirates fear, Treasure Island must have launched 1,000s of young men into overseas adventures. Even today it tempts us out of our safe sofa corner in front of the TV and a box of chocolates with all the right mix of danger and reward.