My Dad was a cub scout leader and we would regularly tramp off to a field to sleep in a tent, climb trees and splash about in rivers. We slept in scratchy sleeping bags on the floor, and woke with stiff limbs, crawling out into some muddy field or other for a campfire breakfast.

As kids it was a dream come true, but my Mum was never quite so keen – and with the benefit of age, I can see where she was coming from.

So I was a little bit nervous when I was invited to review a campsite in France with Canvas Holidays earlier this month.

I needn’t have been.

Canvas Holidays operates on a number of sites across France, Italy, Spain and Europe. If you choose to, you can camp in a tent – although these tents have fridge freezers, proper beds and electricity, so it’s not exactly the kind of camping we did as kids!

But you can also opt to stay in a 4-bed, lakeside luxury cabin, which is where we stayed on our flying visit to La Croix du Vieux Pont, a campsite in Berny Riviere, around 50 miles outside Paris.

The cabins, which are exclusive to Canvas Holidays on this site, are extremely spacious, with an outside deck, large sitting/dining room, fully-fitted kitchen, 2 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms to sleep up to 10 guests. For smaller groups, there are 2 and 3-bed cabins available, too. There’s even central heating, if it gets chilly.

However, we weren’t in France just to check out the sleeping quarters. Canvas Holidays had invited us to try out their Family Extra programme, which is designed to get families active, and having fun together – which I thought made a refreshing change from many activity programmes, which are based on the idea that you leave your children in a club while you relax. Family Extra, which is run in partnership with outdoor activity company In2Action.

Taking part in Family Extra means you get to play games, take part in sports on dry land and on water, and there are some gentler arts and crafts activities, too.

We had just a taste of the programme and it was nothing short of a revelation. There’s a point in life where most of us stop playing games like Splat and Poison, or running relay races, or throwing foam javelins around. We think those sorts of things are just for the kids. But honestly, our afternoon with Craig and Craig of In2Action was hilarious – I laughed so hard when Sue Reay from Female First threw her foam hammer into the top of a nearby tree, I almost did myself an injury.

And nothing – but nothing – is funnier than Water Bomb Volleyball – so much fun I taught Flea how to play, on our trip to the Isle of Wight last week. Get yourself a bowl full of water bombs, divide the family into teams, and take turns throwing a bomb and trying to catch it, without it bursting all over you. Best. Fun. Ever.  

I think it’s a stroke of genius encouraging families to do these things together. I can’t think of a better way to make a holiday to France more memorable.

It helps that La Croix du Vieux Pont is a gorgeous site. There are three lakes, and a range of properties ranging from tents to mobile homes and cabins. The pitches are well set out so the site doesn’t feel crowded and there is a great on-site supermarket, restaurant and bar. The bakery serves fresh bread in the mornings, and kids will love the wide open spaces, playground, bouncy castle and artificial beach. There is a decent pool with water-slides, which isn’t as big as some we’ve see on this type of site, but it’s perfectly fine.

When we visited, the site had just completed a brand new indoor laser-shooting building, and a bowling alley, making it a great place to entertain the kids even if the weather isn’t amazing.

The location of the site is a huge bonus – just an hour’s drive from Paris and the attractions of Disneyland Paris. The campsite even runs daily buses to Disneyland if you don’t want the hassle of driving and parking. We spent our final morning in France at Disneyland Paris, and it was just as much fun as I remembered – check out this post for our top tips for making the most of a trip to Disneyland.

If you’re looking for an affordable, family-friendly place to stay in France that’s close to Disneyland Paris then I’d whole-heartedly recommend La Croix du Vieux Pont. There are so many different options for different budgets that there will almost certainly be something affordable for most families, and the site itself is perfect for school-aged children.

Notes: All travel and accommodation costs were covered by Canvas Holidays for the purposes of this review. Accommodation this July/August at La Croix du Vieux Pont costs from £398 for 7 nights in a Maxi Tent sleeping up to 6 people; rising to £1987 for 7 nights in a luxury 4-bed lodge sleeping 10, including return ferry crossings. But do check the Canvas Holidays website as there are always special offers and discounts available. 

Last time, we went back to nature by staying in a yurt set in an apple orchard. It was incredibly picturesque but just a touch chilly, and a compost toilet does lose its rustic appeal after the first few visits.

This Spring, we were invited to try out the West Bay Club, a holiday village on the Isle of Wight, just a minute or two’s walk from the town of Yarmouth.

The West Bay Club is a village of around 100 New England style cottages set around lots of open green spaces. It’s perfect if you want a self-catering base that’s close to the action, while also offering loads of open space for children to run around safely, and make friends.

I know the words holiday village can bring up visions of those places with inflatable slides and themed family restaurants and lots of enforced jollity, but I promise, that’s not what the West Bay Club is all about. This is a really relaxed spot with loads of open green spaces where children can just run around safely, and play. The accommodation is clean, modern and stylish, and there are some lovely extra touches like being able to order groceries before you arrive, and even request a meal to be prepared and waiting for you on arrival. There’s WiFi around the village and you can pay £12 a week for WiFi in your accommodation, if needed.

As an added bonus, the West Bay Club has its own country club complete with its own spa, gym and impressive range of sports activities and lessons. If the weather is less than stellar, you can book in for anything from a tennis lesson with the on-site coach, or a hot yoga session (much to my embarrassment, turns out this isn’t yoga for beautiful people, but yoga involving steam, or something). There are guides who can take the family on walks and hikes, or cycle rides around the island’s many picturesque coastal pathways. You can book the kids into an activity session and enjoy a spa treatment yourself, if you prefer. Which I do. Obviously.

During our visit, Flea and her best friend Zara had a tae-kwon-do lesson and tennis lessons, and made extensive use of the on-site pool, including the afternoon Wet and Wild session, with floats and inflatables. The facilities are all clean, and impeccably kept, and we found the staff really friendly and helpful. But we had glorious weather and their favourite thing to do was make use of the outdoor space, running around with water balloons and getting wet and dirty.

Beyond the West Bay Club, what is there to do? 

Funnily enough, before our trip I asked people on Twitter for their IOW recommendations, and someone said they found the Isle of Wight boring, and would never go back.

I can see where they’re coming from. I often think driving round the Isle of Wight is a bit like peeking through a window at England in the 1950s – there are picturesque villages galore, with perfect cottages fronted by neat gardens with rose bushes, and village greens, everywhere you look. There are a few “tourist attractions” but with the exception of the Seaview Wildlife Experience (which is fab) I’m not sure any of them are unmissable.

But I think the reason to go to the Isle of Wight is precisely this simplicity. If you’re the kind of family that’s quite happy to spend entire days on the beach, collecting shells and crabs, and building sandcastles, then the Isle of Wight is brilliant. We loved the beaches, and the charming harbour towns, and looking for dinosaur fossils (which can be found in abundance on the Island), and the feeling of being just a little bit disconnected from the outside world (literally, since outside the main towns there is NO mobile signal to found on most of the island).

Want to know a little more? Here’s Flea’s video review of our long weekend at West Bay Club:

West Bay Club, Isle of Wight from MAD Blog Awards on Vimeo.

Notes: A 3-night break in a 2-bedroom property at The West Bay Club costs from £547 during May Bank Holiday, rising to £840 during the summer holidays. Our accommodation, activity and travel costs were provided by West Bay Club for the purposes of this review. For further information on the resort, see www.westbayclub.co.uk, and for ferry crossing information see www.wightlink.co.uk 

We’ve been home long enough to try these recipes again and I am delighted to report we have managed NOT to poison anyone in the family. On that basis, we’re now sharing with you a simple, Italian menu that can be prepared in just a couple of hours by kitchen-idiots like me.

All recipes serve 6 people, so just adjust accordingly if cooking for more/less people.

Bruschetta

• White, Italian bread
• 4 large, ripe tomatoes
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Salt
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Pepper (freshly ground)
• Oregano leaves

To make bruschetta, slice the bread into chunky slices, around 1cm deep and toast lightly. Next, rub the garlic cloves on both sides of the bread, and top with thin (0.5cm thick) slices of tomato.

Season with salt, pepper, oregano and the olive oil.

Job done.

Pizza

• 500g of 00 wheat flour
• 350ml water (at room temperature)
• 7.5g yeast
• 0.5 tablespoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

Add the yeast to the room temperature water, stir until it’s dissolved. Put to one side.

On a clean granite counter-top or wooden board, pile the flour, and use your fingers to make a ‘well’ in the middle. Into the well add the salt, oil, and the water/yeast

Using the back of a fork, gradually mix the flour into the wet ingredients. Mashing the fork up and down will get rid of lumps in your dough.

When the mixture gets sticky and gloopy, use a dough scraper to continue mixing and then use your hands to knead the dough for the last 5 minutes

If your dough starts to stick to your hands, dust your hand with flour and spread over the dough rather than flouring the dough itself.

Using the scraper, cut your dough into balls – this recipe will make 4 pizzas each serving 2 people – and leave to rest for 2 hours, under a damp tea towel.

After the dough has rested, dust the work surface with flour, and use your fingers to lightly tap on the dough and flatten it into a rough circle shape – once your dough is less than an inch thick, use a rolling pin to roll it out to around 15cm diameter (or the size of your pizza dish/stone). If you’d like to make foccaccia, simply skip the rolling out stage, and top your dimpled dough with salt, olive oil and garlic before cooking.

Dust any excess flour off the dough with your hands, and top each disk with around 4 tablespoons of fresh, crushed tomatoes. For a marinara pizza, add garlic, oregano and olive oil. For a margarita pizza add mozzarella, fresh basil and olive oil. Anything else is simply NOT acceptable to an Italian chef – but you might want to sneak on some spicy salami and chilli flakes. Just a recommendation…

Cook in a very hot oven for 4-5 minutes.

Tiramisu

• 4 large eggs
• 1lb marscapone cheese
• 24 small lady fingers
• 12 level tablespoons of sugar
• 6-7 tablespoons of cocoa powder (unsweetened)
• 1 small cup espresso coffee

Start out with two large bowls. In one, whisk the egg whites into stiff peaks. In the other stir together the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture is pale and creamy. It’s REALLY important the eggs are at room temperature.

Stir the cheese (also at room temperature) into the yolks and sugar, and then gently fold the egg whites into this mixture.

Take a shallow glass serving dish and sift a thin layer of cocoa powder into the bottom – just enough to coat the glass

On top of this, put two generous spoonfuls of the cheese mixture, and top with a thin dusting of cocoa

Next, dip 2 of the biscuits into espresso coffee and put on top of the cocoa – don’t pour the coffee over the biscuits, it makes them too soggy

Layer again with cream and cocoa. Keep going until you have used the ingredients up. Top with a dusting of cocoa powder and crumbled biscuit and/or chocolate chips

Chill for 2 hours in the fridge before serving

We haven’t met yet, but honestly, I have high hopes of a beautiful friendship between you and I.

Certainly, I know you won’t let me down the way that bastard Last Week did.

For starters, there was the unfortunate incident where I had to cancel a night away in a 5-star hotel in favour of dealing with emails about server upgrades.

You’d never do that, would you Next Week?

I am also 100 percent confident that you won’t be involved in any bird-killing shenanigans, the way that Last Week was.

Which is lucky, because it means that I won’t be forced to scream like a little girl at the sight of a decapitated bird having been dragged through the cat-flap. And I especially won’t be forced to make my seven-year-old daughter go and get the keys out of the back door because I’m too freaked out at the sight of my kitchen having been transformed into The Killing Fields, and we’re already late for school as it is.

Because you’re good and kind, Next Week, there will be no reason for me to have to ring my ex-husband and plead for him to come round to my house to clear up a dead bird, followed by a lifetime of being at his mercy because that’s how long I promised to be in his debt in exchange for the carnage clean-up.

If at all possible, Next Week, I’d really like not to have to deal with anyone who has “technical support” in their job title. I am sure everyone I spoke to Last Week meant terribly well, but if I hear the words, “I’ve never seen that happen before. I’ll Google it,” once more, I think it might just be the end of me.

And I know I’m asking a lot here, Next Week, but if you could swing it, I’d like not to go to sleep in a room where there’s a mutant giant insect that will bite me on the arse. And no, I’m not using a metaphor here.

Let’s face it, you’re just not that kind of guy, Next Week. You would never make me allergic to the insect in question, meaning my entire rear end swells up and turns red, causing me to walk with a limp for three days that I have to try and explain to the District Commissioner when attending training for my role as a Beaver Scout leader*.

You wouldn’t do that to me.

Would you?

Yours Hopefully,

Sally

*Obviously, this is just an illustration of something that might hypothetically happen to someone, rather than being something that happened to me. Obviously.

I’m not surprised – I keep seeing mentions among bloggers of the game, and every time I log into Facebook, I’m accosted by half a dozen updates from friends who are inviting me to play.

So, for a couple of weeks, I added the game, and played.

I can see what people like about Candy Crush. It’s cute, and simple to understand, and accessible. It’s social, too – you can gloat as you pass friends, or ask for and give lives to friends who also play the game.

But last week, I uninstalled the game. And I’ve no intention of adding it back.

I’ll admit at first I was completely sucked in to Candy Crush. The early levels are easy and yes, it’s a bit spammy the way the game constantly wants you to ask friends for help to access new levels, but if those friends are playing the game too, then what’s the problem?

Then I started to see Tweets from friends who were stuck on the same level for day after day, and week after week. That didn’t seem right for an online puzzle.

As I progressed through the levels though, I think I spotted the reason – often when a level launches, it often becomes apparent within the first two or three moves whether or not the puzzle can be solved. And it seems that the further you go in the game, the less likely you are to be presented with a puzzle that can be solved. The solution to the puzzle almost always relies on chance. You remove some candy and hope that the right formation of blocks falls into place. And it usually doesn’t. But when it does, the puzzle can be solved.

Then I saw a Tweet from a Candy Crush player who Tweeted a screenshot of a completed level with the words, “Who cares if I have to buy two boosters? I did it.” 

And that’s when it hit me. Isn’t Candy Crush a lot like a big, virtual slot machine?

It’s highly addictive, relies almost entirely on chance rather than skill, and continuously encourages the user to put in small amounts of money that can quickly add up to big amounts of money. After all, it’s “only” a pound or two, right?

The issue of whether social gaming should be classed as gambling is one that’s being seriously discussed in the US, and I wonder if we’re going to see an increasing tide of stories about people losing more time and money than they can afford to social games.

You don’t HAVE to spend cash to play Candy Crush. But boy do the developers make it easy. On Facebook, the button to ‘try again’ when you fail a level is in exactly the same place as the ‘buy now’ button that also sometimes flashes up at the end of a level. I very quickly lost count of how many times I accidentally brought up the box inviting me to buy 1, 5 or 10 credits. I don’t see this kind of design built into other online games I play, such as Zynga’s Words With Friends.

I guess there are lots of people who don’t spend money on virtual games. Or maybe they do spend money and it seems like good value for money when measured against the entertainment of the game. Kellie over at Big Fashionista has written a fab post today about Candy Crush arguing it should be taught in schools.

But for me? I started to feel a bit like a lab rat in front of a virtual fruit machine, being fed regular hits of dopamine to keep me hooked.

What do you reckon? Are you a Candy Crush addict?  Have you ever spent money on online games?

Photo Credit: cloud2013 via Compfight cc

If you’re a Tumblr user (check out the Tots100′s guide to Tumblr for beginners if you’re not!) then you’ll be familiar with GIFs – animated images that are used to express a quick thought or capture a memorable moment. They’re ALL over the Internet. Approximately 50% of GIFs feature cats. Or people falling over. Like this one, which is never NOT funny to me:

I know from perusing Instagram that most of you spent this weekend in the great outdoors, doing lovely educational, life-affirming things with your children.

Honestly?

I spent most of the weekend in bed, messing about on the Internet and finding stuff that made me laugh. But you don’t need to worry that you missed out. Because as well as sharing with you the amazing discovery that is Mansions and Fine Art for Dogs*, I have decided to share with you my other discovery of the weekend – GIFs that remind me of parent blogging…

When someone leaves a mean comment on my blog

When someone famous Tweets me

Oh, you unfollowed me on Twitter accidentally?

When I successfully make my own blog header

Of course I don’t mind when you blog about the same thing as me.

A PR just told me they really love my blog.

How I feel when there’s no WiFi at a blogging event.

When a PR invites me to an event that’s not in London. 

You found a typo on my blog? Well done, you. 

When a PR sends a press release about chocolate… and no chocolate.

I’d been driving my little Citroen C3 for a couple of years but I was due to have a baby and that meant I needed a car that could manage a Labrador, husband, pushchair and baby plus assorted shopping – and my C3 was very definitely not THAT car. One of the vehicles we looked at was the Volvo XC90 – I loved the space, and knew it would be really comfortable for the regular journeys I made from Sussex to see family in Lancashire.

As it happened, we opted for something more affordable – with hindsight, the right decision as I ended up moving to Lancashire two years later, and soon afterwards wrote off the car. If there’s one thing that makes you feel better about writing off a £25,000 car, it’s not having written off a £35,000 car. Okay, it doesn’t make you feel a LOT better, but still – it was a silver lining, of sorts.

Anyway, fast forward a few years, and I found myself between cars – so the lovely people at Volvo gave me the opportunity to road test my dream car, the Volvo XC90, for a couple of weeks.

So what did we make of it?

The first thing you notice about the XC90 is its size. This is a TANK of a car. It seats 5 adults comfortably in the front and back seats, with an optional third row of seats that will seat two smaller people. If you don’t need the third row of seats, they fold flat, meaning you have a boot that I can happily inform you will hold six small children, assorted teddies, welly boots and a week’s shopping (not while the car is moving, that would be unsafe).

For the driver, the seating is really spacious, and the leather interior is under-stated and very comfortable – as you’d expect from a Volvo, really. I did slightly miss having an arm rest in a car of this size, but that’s a small niggle. The rear seats are comfortable enough that Flea fell asleep on our journey down to London last week – which she NEVER does in our regular car.

The Volvo Xc90 has some lovely gadgets that were fun to use – the in-built navigation is great, seamlessly steering us off the motorway to avoid traffic jams, and the simple steering-wheel controls for the navigation are ideal when you’re the only adult in the car, as I generally am. You can connect a mobile phone in the car using Bluetooth, and the sound system is really impressive.

I remember reading that Volvo involved women in the design of the XC90 and it certainly shows – with a drop down tailgate and a strap to help the shorter ones amongst us pull down the boot, for example. The middle rear seat has an integrated booster cushion, and you can pull it forward so that a child in the back is closer to the front seat passengers. That sort of feature comes in really handy when you need to pass back water and things to a child in the rear seat (when Flea was younger, I lost count of the number of tearful journeys caused by my having to say, “I’m really sorry darling, I can’t reach to give it to you.”)

There’s bags of storage in this car, in the front and back of the vehicle, and a handy rear seat power socket, too, so I could let Flea plug in the iPad and play on long journeys. And leather interior feels luxurious but is also mercifully easy to wipe down – which was much appreciated when Flea spilled a bottle of milk all over the back seats – phew!

And what’s it like to drive?

After writing off my 4×4, I downsized to a mid-sized car, so my first thought on driving the XC90 was what fun it was to drive a BIG vehicle again. The XC90 has a great driving position and I loved the extra visibility, especially on the motorway. Indeed, for long drives, I thought the XC90 was perfect – it has one of the most intuitive cruise controls I’ve ever used, which makes life a lot easier on those long stretches of roadworks on the motorway where you need to stick to 50mph for mile after boring mile.

Put your foot down and the engine roars pleasingly, and the car certainly responds when you need to over-take someone, for example. Overall, on the motorway, I thought the XC90 felt powerful, safe, and comfortable – pretty much everything you could want, in fact.

But in the urban environment, I was a bit less sure. The automatic gearbox is hassle-free but felt slow to respond from a standing start – I was quite nervous at T-junctions and roundabouts because compared to other automatics I’ve driven (such as the diesel automatic CR-V or VW Touran) the XC90 was much slower to move, meaning you couldn’t “nip into” a gap in the traffic.  The engine’s quite noisy in that situation too, which meant my left hand would be twitching nervously, itching to shift a gearstick!

Parking was loads easier than I thought it might be – despite my Dad laughing at the very thought of me trying to park such a big (not to mention expensive) car without pranging it, I managed to parallel park on our town’s main street without any hassles at all. Yes, the parking sensors are a big help, but actually the steering on the XC90 is really good, so parking is very straightforward.

Of course, it’s a Volvo, so there are bags of safety features including front, side and curtain airbags, roll stability control and a strengthened roof that helps protect the occupants in the event of the car rolling over in an accident. It’s certainly a nice feeling to strap your child into something that feels so substantial.

Affordability

Back when we first looked at the XC90 we were put off by the high purchase price, but prices have come down a lot in recent years. There’s now just one engine available (an automatic diesel) which you can pick up for around £28,000, and the newspaper reviews I’ve read all seem to be speculating that there are even better deals to be had if you negotiate hard, since a new XC90 model is expected in the next year or so.

For such a big car, the running costs of the XC90 were way less than I expected. After around 10 days of driving, the onboard computer told me that the XC90 was delivering an average of 29.5mpg.

Additional Top Tips

One of the benefits car companies should consider when loaning us a car to review is that if there is something in your car that is a) easy to break or b) potentially confusing, we’ll find it.

And so it was that I found myself Googling “What do I do if the XC90 sat-nav doesn’t work because it says the DVD cover is open?” (Answer: the sat-nav unit is under the seat, you can very easily knock it with the back of your foot; just reach under with your hand, and slide the front bit down again).

I also may have turned to the Internet to find out how to move the driver seat forward when I accidentally moved it so far back I was no longer able to reach the brake – turns out, this is electronic and controlled by a lever on the right side of the seat (pretty cool) and that once you’ve electronically adjusted the seat height, position and incline to your liking, you can save this in the car’s memory as a preference – you can save up to three different driver preferences and the XC90 will recognise which driver is in the car based on which key they’re using (even cooler).

It’s also really hard to get a good look under the seats – but just because you don’t SEE your phone under there, doesn’t mean this isn’t where you lost it – three days after my mobile went MIA, I turned a corner and my phone suddenly slid out into the rear seating area!

Overall Verdict

There are a few small niggles with the XC90 – for me, it felt heavy and slow to respond in lower gears, which you’ll notice most when you’re driving in town.

But there’s definitely a lot to love – bags of room, loads of comfort and a really practical, not too complicated layout. It’s an absolute dream for motorway driving, and I’m going to cry next time I drive on a motorway in something other than this car. Given it’s a Volvo, it feels very safe, which is crucial when you have kids. And there’s loads of boot space – perfect for trips to Ikea, or the recycling centre.

Fundamentally, the XC90 isn’t designed for single Mums with one child - every time I’m tempted by a big car, I imagine myself setting fire to £1,000 in my front garden, and suddenly feel a bit less appealed by the whole idea. But if I had three kids and a dog and bikes and I did a lot of open-road driving, I’d definitely consider the XC90. In the meantime, I’ll definitely be looking at the XC90′s little brother, the XC60, as an option for our next car.

We were provided with the use of a Volvo XC90 for the purposes of this review. We had to give it back, mind. 

That was it.

No rules, no guidelines, just –  go somewhere and have fun.

And so it was we ended up booking two flights to Florence for a three-night stay at the Westin Excelsior Hotel. After I booked the hotel, I asked my Twitter followers what fun things there are to do in Florence.

“There are a lot of bridges,” said one friend.

“It’s very pretty,” said another.

It didn’t look promising. Nobody seemed to have any ideas of really fun things to do with kids in Florence.

So I hit the Internet and did a bit of research – and ended up having a fantastic few days in one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever visited.

When we arrived at the Westin Excelsior in Florence I wasn’t in the best of moods – I’d realised as I’d got to the bottom of the steps on the plane from London that I’d left my phone on board – but it was nowhere to be found. Grrr. But, honestly? It’d be a sorry day indeed when your spirits aren’t lifted by this hotel room:

High stucco ceilings, a chandelier,  huge french windows and a view directly over the Arno. This has to be one of the most beautiful hotel rooms we’ve ever stayed in. There were lovely extra touches – free bottled water, and a basket of fruit and chocolates to welcome us. The huge marble bathroom contained the Best Shower in the World EVER. At around 350 euros a night, it’s not cheap – but every once in a while it’s worth splashing out, no? And just look at that view…

After a quick shower, Flea and I set out on the 10 minute walk along the Arno from our hotel to attend a cooking class where we learned to make our own pizza and gelato. This was such good fun – there were around 20 students in the class from all over the world, and we started out making our pizza dough, then while the dough was left to rise, we set about making chocolate gelato. While the gelato was in the ice cream maker, we returned to our pizza dough, rolling it to a circle, topping with tomatoes, mozzarella, chilli flakes and basil, before popping into the hot oven for 3 or 4 minutes to cook.

Throughout the evening, we got loads of tips on making dough, selecting ingredients, and why Italians make certain foods the way they do from the two Italian chefs running the class. At the end of the evening, we chomped down our pizza with a glass of chianti for me, and a Coke for Flea, finishing off with chocolate gelato. Perfect!  I can definitely see us using the pizza recipe again (we’ll blog it) as it’s ridiculously easy and tasted fab.

The next day, we set out to see the sights of Florence. We soon found ourselves at the Duomo – a gorgeous church of pink, green and white marble. You can climb the 463 steps to the top of the dome if you’re feeling energetic – we weren’t, so we opted instead for a horse and carriage ride along the banks of the Arno, which we both sneezed our way through (turns out we’re allergic to horses). We jumped off halfway round the tour to check out Bartolucci – a gorgeous little shop packed with wooden toys, clocks and children’s decorations – Flea came home with a fab wooden sword and some presents for her school friends. We also loved Gilli, a 200-year-old cafe and confectioner with the most amazing hand-made chocolates and cakes.

After that, we headed to the Uffizi, home to some of the world’s most famous renaissance paintings. We opted for a guided tour which was a good option as our guide was amazing, making the tour more of a discussion than a lecture – we learned loads, as well as getting to see masterpieces like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and La Primavera, and Doni Tondo by Michelangelo. I’m not sure I’ll ever quite recover from the effort of not laughing at the child Flea’s age sitting dead in front of the Birth of Venus and playing Subway Surfer on an iPad. Kids, eh?

Having a guide meant Flea could ask questions and follow a lot more of what went on so she didn’t get bored despite the tour taking well over three hours - seeing Flea’s face as the guide said, “So, Bambina, is this painting renaissance or baroque?” and watching Flea get the answer right was quite a moment.

Cultured out, we headed off to the rather unassuming Il Vico del Carmine for dinner – the concierge at the hotel said this place makes amazing pizza and he wasn’t wrong. The interior is spartan with plaster walls and iron gates between tables, but the food is really lovely, the pizzas fresh and tasty, and pretty good value – dinner for two with drinks and dessert came out at just under 30 euros.

Next morning, we headed off to Florence Central Market for a VIP tour with local food sellers to learn about Italian food – beginning with a session where learned all about different olive oils, balsamic vinegars and cheeses – with tastings. It’s quite amazing (to me, anyway) that you REALLY can tell the difference between a balsamic vinegar that’s been aged for 4 years versus 15 years. We picked up loads of tips on cooking and simple but impressive looking foods to serve, before heading off to meet with the baker to learn about Tuscan bread (made without salt) and truffles. Apparently white truffle is an acquired taste, but Flea loved it, wolfing down about 20 pieces of the bread topped with white truffle salt. If you are a foodie, this place is AMAZING – I’d have loved to have had more time to just wander round and look at everything.

Next, we headed back to the cookery school where we were to make our own 4-course Tuscan meal – bruschetta, followed by 2 pasta dishes (bolognese with pappardelle and ravioli with ricotta and a sage butter sauce, followed by Tiramisu). I’ll be honest, making pasta is a lot fiddlier than pizza – but we triumphed and look – I cooked! All made with our own fair hands, and it tasted flippin’ amazing, which is worth the price of the trip alone, possibly.

Exhausted and full, we headed off for an afternoon’s shopping – mostly of the window variety, since Florence is home to a dizzying number of designer shops. There are gorgeous buildings everywhere and we loved just wandering round enjoying the sunshine and the views.

For our final evening, we dined at SE-STO in Florence – this is the restaurant on the sixth floor of the Westin hotel. It has the most glorious floor-to-ceiling glass windows, proving quite magical views of Florence, the Arno and the Tuscan hills beyond, especially at sunset. It’s a fancy restaurant, yes, but it’s not stuffy – the waitresses all took the time to learn Flea’s (actual) name and explain what was in each dish, and offered to provide some plain spaghetti with tomato sauce for her main course.

Having said that, Flea did amaze me by wolfing down a starter of chickpeas flour mille-feuille with prawns and sweet peppers cream. I had the same, followed by carnaroli risotto with beetroot, Bagoss cheese and Cava wine sauce – it was pretty amazing (and as is the rule whenever I dine in a fancy restaurant, yes, I did spill half of it down my front).  A fitting end to our short break, I’m sure you’ll agree. 

Notes: We travelled to Florence as part of a review trip for Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. 

We booked our cooking classes and food tour through Florencetown. The pizza and gelato workshop cost 45 euros for adults and 23 euros for children aged 6-12; the VIP market tour and tuscan cooking class costs 125 euros for adults and 62 euros for children. The Uffizi and Vasari corridor tour costs  85 euros for adults and 50 euros for children. 

If you’d like to see them, there are more photos of our trip over on Facebook. 

Stick an arbitrary label on a day, and something happens – you’ll remember that thing on the same day every year going forward.

There are birthdays, anniversaries, dates when someone died, dates when we went somewhere special.

April 6 is the day my house should have been repossessed.

I wish I didn’t remember that quite so vividly, but there you go. On this date, not so very many years ago, I was due in court to explain to a magistrate why they shouldn’t let the mortgage company take our house.

The letter had arrived a week or two earlier.  I’d sat on the bottom step and cried, while Flea stroked my arm and whispered, “Be happy, Mummy,” to me.

I was £70,000 in debt after my divorce. On top of that, a client bailed on a five-figure contract I’d banked on – meaning I simply couldn’t pay the mortgage for four months, and I was spending a fortune I didn’t have on solicitors in the hope of recovering some of the money I’d lost.

As a parent, there are some fundamental things you do. You raise your child to be happy and healthy, and you put food in their belly and keep a roof over their head. Realising I might not be able to do that, because of my own stupid decisions, was a really tough lesson to learn.

I’m sure that given the recession, there are hundreds of families who’ve had a similar experience. And many of those aren’t lucky enough to have the sort of job I do – which does at least have the potential for earning some extra cash when you’re strapped. We were incredibly lucky, in so many ways. Through hard work and a healthy dose of good fortune, I found the money to pay the arrears, just before the hearing took place.

So as it turned out, April 6 was just another day.

But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the blind panic I felt staring at that date on the letter.

Life moves on, as it does, and things got better, as they usually do. Especially if you work hard, and keep at it, and are lucky enough to find great people to work with. Thankfully, the financial crisis passed without major incident, and life got calmer. Over time, I cleared the debt, and learned a few important lessons in the process about managing our finances and living not just within our means, but a bit below that.

Today, I bought myself a new car. No loans, no financing (like many people who’ve clambered out of debt, I don’t do credit any more). It’s my car, bought and paid for by my hard work.

It’s not brand new. It’s not especially fancy. But it’s all ours.

And I’m happy, just like Flea wanted.

As you do.

Specifically I’ve been thinking about why so many women get sucked into the notion that True Love – the sort with capital letters and everything – should be hard work. That the more tears are shed, and sleepless nights wasted, the better.

Should love hurt?

If we look at books and movies and TV, it’s not a sunny outlook. Love’s a bitch, isn’t it? And usually, the ones being bitch-slapped by Love are women.

Take Bella and Edward. Or Buffy and Angel if you’re a bit older – it’s the same story, with different actors, let’s face it. She’s a young girl, he’s a vampire who’d like to kill her. It’s not hard to see how that relationship might tip over into the self-destructive.

Then there’s Joey and Pacey. Or Felicity and Ben. Or Blair and Chuck. Or Rory and Jess. Or Johnny and Baby. I can keep going all day if needed – my knowledge of trashy media is almost without limit *proud face*.

It’s always the same old story – girl falls for boy, boy turns out to have ISSUES, which result in girl being sad a lot of of the time, but girl hangs on in there until boy is almost entirely reformed, and they can live happily ever after.

Is this really a good message? Shouldn’t Blair really have dumped Chuck the first time he slept around, and just left it at that? Shouldn’t Bella really have decided life would be more fun without killing herself to be with the man/vampire she loved?

I know, I know. It’s romantic. You can go all the way back to Chaucer and see that romance has always been about the quest. And there have to be obstacles, or it’s not a quest. But when do the boys get a turn at bashing their shins as they try and get over the hurdles?

Take this scene between Veronica and Logan in Veronica Mars.

Logan is the leading man in this season. And why not? He’s drunk, sleeping with one of his friend’s stepmothers, facing a murder charge, has punched pretty much everyone Veronica knows, and has recently admitted supplying the drugs that led to our heroine being date-raped.

SUCH a catch.

If you can’t see the video, the conversation goes something like this:

Logan: I thought our story was epic, you know? You and me. 

Veronica: Epic how? 

Logan: Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, blood shed. Epic. But summer’s almost here, and we won’t see each other at all. Then you’ll leave town and… it’s over. 

Veronica: Logan… 

Logan: I’m sorry. About last summer. If I could do it over.. .

Veronica: Come on. Ruined lives, bloodshed? You really think a relationship should be that hard? 

Logan: No one writes songs about the ones that come easy. 

I get it. Really, I do.

When presented with a kick-ass soundtrack, mood lighting and soulful eyes, it’d take a stronger woman than me not to think, however fleetingly, that all the bad boy needs is someone to take care of him. And I know from bitter experience that most woman have one or five two self-destructive, tortured relationships in their past.

But it bugs me that the stories are so one-sided.

Can you think of a single popular TV show where the hero waits patiently while the Bad Girl sleeps around, breaks the law, disgraces herself repeatedly and then – after all that – realises she just wasn’t looking for love in the right places?

I can’t.

The boy equivalent of this story is She’s All That, where the boy accepts a bet to take the nerdy girl to prom, gets to know her, and decides (brave little soldier) to overlook her shortcomings – which are basically being smart and independent. Thank goodness, though…  prom comes around, the girl lets down her hair and puts on a slick of lip gloss and it’s all, Why Miss Jones, you’re beautiful!  

Pfft.

I’m going to petition for a re-write of The Breakfast Club where Molly Ringwald tells Judd Nelson where to stick it, keeps the diamond ear-ring, and teaches all her friends that trick with the lipstick.

Who’s with me?