Where can I take DH for his 50th? Help! (Plus I need to keep the children alive).

[DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou]

I was planning to take him to Amsterdam as he loves it but there's only one person who can take the kids and she's only one it once and she fed him something he's anaphylactic to.
Whilst I believe it was a genuine error, and she won't do it again - I'm a little bit nervous to leave the country.

It's DH'a 50th at the end of the summer and I really want to take him somewhere that's 2-4 max. We're in Brighton.

Can anyone help?

Just to be extra unhelpful, I don't actually know what I want to do.

When the plan was Amsterdam, I was rich with choice.

We went to Bovey Castle (Dartmoor) for a milestone birthday. We loved it, and if the budget is a bit steep for the rooms, you can hire some of the lodges in the grounds through Helpful Holidays.

The food, drink, pool etc is all amazing, and they bring you the most amazing menu for the bar. I could barely walk back to our room after trying different gins . We loved it there, walked miles, had some spa treatments. www.boveycastle.com/

Luxury cottage in rural wales? Champagne, walks, sex......

Liverpool is bloody lovely. The Walker Art Gallery and the Tate, loads of brilliant places to eat on Bold Street, brilliant shopping and loads of quirky corners and live music. And the people are absolutely wonderful.

Or here- www.gladstoneslibrary.org - really close to Liverpool and Manchester, but also to the gorgeous mountains and scenery of Wales.

Or if you went somewhere with a dark sky area, you could do stuff in the day and watch the skies at night with no light pollution.. makes such a difference.

Liverpool also has the stunning Planetarium at the World Museum in the city centre, but it's quite a journey from the south coast.

Gleneagles. They have ferrets.

Blue dot would be amazing !

Cornwall or The Lake District.

How about taking children and paying for a baby sitter while you're there.

www.winchestersciencecentre.org/

Why don't you go and stay in Hadlow Tower?

https://www.thehadlowtower.co.uk/

Or have a look at Landmark Trust

https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/

And do not take the children

What about Cornwall (not too far down - maybe Tintagel at a push and the rest of the north coast)? Devon? Somerset? Dorset? Suffolk? Norfolk? Shropshire/Welsh borders (Ludlow is lovely, especially if you like food...)?

There are some lovely places in all of them, all a bit special, and easyish to get back for you within that 4 hour time frame if you need to. If he likes space type things, Exmoor now has Dark Sky status; there's an observatory at Sidmouth; or if you're heading over Suffolk way there's always Rendlesham... or even base yourselves in Exeter and explore the city and nearby(ish) Dartmoor, it's beautiful that time of year.

Sorry if I’m repeating, I haven’t read the entire post.

My eldest daughter is now in Y8 and my 2nd going into year 7, both given a phone for the Christmas ahead of starting secondary but we were very naive the 1st time resulting in major problems for DD1 and a hellish year for us as parents, needless to say we have done things completely different the 2nd time around.

Do consider what your child will have access to with the various social media platforms explicit language, sexual images, descriptions of disorders, pictures of self harm, eating disorders, sexualisation of young teens, the list goes on. Think about whether or not they that have the maturity to deal and process it. My DD1 didn’t.

Be careful of Instant messaging, WhatsApp included and the effect it has on your child’s mental health, it was only through taking my DD’s phone off her for bad behaviour and having it buzzing constantly on the side for 15 minutes that I realised how damaging it could potentially be.

Friend 1 “Hi”
Friend 2 “Did you tell friend A that I had fallen out with her?”
Friend 3 “Have you down the French homework?”
Friend 1 “why are you ignoring me”
Friend 3 because I’m half way through and I’m stuck
Friend 2 because I didn’t say that and now she won’t speak to me
Friend 5 “What are you up to”
Friend 1 “I know you have seen this message”

15 minutes was all I could take without getting twitchy and overwhelmed but my DD was listening and reading to hours and hours of it....

I don’t know about anyone else here but I waved bye to the majority of my friends at 1600 on an average school day and didn’t see them till 0900 the next morning. I had space and time to breath and process, teen drama was forgotten with a huge mug of tea and a chat with my mum and usually went to my bed and woke up the next again day feeling lighter and refreshed.

That was a light bulb moment for me and though I’d already banned a lot of the harmful apps and social media platforms from then on in I was/am a lot stricter with her usage which I have found and resulted in a much more positive and happy child.

Ahhh sorry...wrong post!!!! 😂😂

If it is in August, could you go to Edinburgh and do the fringe for a couple of days. Loads of lovely places to stay.

Have a look at where Dark Sky sights are around the UK? Basically the darkest places so amazing for stargazing etc and I think sometimes you're supposed to be able to see the northern lights. There's Kielder Observatory but not sure if that's too far north!