Holidays don't need to be fancy

[ItisallPooh]

I've been feeling guilty as we don't have exotic holidays or even a few days away planned for the holidays as I'm recovering from a big operation and we weren't sure how able I would be.
We are in Scotland so are in our 2nd week of holidays.
We have been on lots of bike rides, trip to a local ice cream place, took the hover board to a park, went dolphin spotting, spent the day at the beach, went and spent some pocket money in Poundland and Vouchers in Claire's, I've frozen Lol dolls in big ice cream tubs and they had to try and free the dolls, water pistol fight, slept in a den in the garden and a woodland walk.
I said today that I was so sorry that we can't go away again this year after all the lockdowns but both kids said it has been fantastic because I'm well enough to go out and about with them. I was in hospital over Easter so barely saw them.
Now I need more ideas for the rest of the holidays. There are some places we will definitely visit but I would love anyone's cheaper "fun at home" ideas.

That sounds like a wonderful time already.

Other ideas:

Day at the park with a picnic, choose books from library/take books/magazines/toys/lunch and spend the day with the picnic blanket as a 'base' playing.

Film day with - film/snacks/blankets/curtains closed/dress up as favourite characters.

Craft day, go to £land or Wilko and buy and do craft.

Baking day - choose sprinkles/toppings/icing and make cakes and biscuits. Decorate and make a display and take photos.

See how many parks/green spaces/beaches you can visit in your local area.

Quiet days at home work too so that everyone gets a chance to rest/rediscover old toys.

Make a scrapbook of what you have done on holiday with photos/drawings/notes.

Last summer I did a lot of bit expensive days out with my kids. Theme parks etc. And it was shit. Everywhere was ridiculously busy. My kids moaned most of the time. I hated every last expensive minute. The best days we had was when my kids played out in the street with their friends.

This summer I am refusing to spend more than £50 on an activity! I think my kids would be happy with six weeks on their Nintendos!

Love these suggestions!
Oh yes, I have a box of crafty things saved from their birthday presents for rainy days. Im in Scotland, realistically we will have lots of them!

Both DDs love to bake so that will happen too.

We are very lucky to have lots of lovely places to go for walks and loads of parks. I just can't go into the hills this year because I'm not well enough. I don't think there has ever been a year I've not gone up at least one Munro. But next year I can do at least two to make up for it!

What a lovely time already. You have a holiday project, maybe start a family nature diary, make a collection of shells and stones and fossils and find their names, get maps from the library and plot a journey and do it, libraries will have activities too and so will your local wildlife trust- ours does pond dipping, cookouts, wildlife safaris etc.

Make a family tree using photos or the children's drawings of family members.

Make a what we did in the holidays collage of photos, bus tickets, information leaflets etc

Any hills with a cable car/ski lift option nearby? Home done themed days can be fun - green day visit green spaces eat green food be very eco Favourite film e.g. Shrek day all dress as magical creatures watch the movies cook rat (chicken) on a stick and become orgres when the sun goes down take turns being a donkey on the edge. Just choose things you like as a starting point.

We try to see how many different parks we can visit over the holiday. So we start in a local town and walk between all of the different parks and then work our way out and drive to visit different and new parks. We take a picnic and go exploring.

A penny hike is also good. You go for a walk and at every junction decide on which direction you go by flipping a coin, heads left, tails right. Works well in the woods or new places.

We sometimes have 'country days'. So the DC choose a country and then we do a whole day with that theme, they make decorations and flags and adorn the house, play games or sports that originated from that country. Then we cook fancy meals and desserts from the chosen country for dinner.

When I was a child in the 80s we only had about 2-3 days out (beach, fun fair etc) per summer because we were poor.

I remember most of my summers playing in the paddling pool or going out on my bike.

I don't think as many people did loads of days out/holidays back then?

Rockpooling and crabbing. Mine absolutely love putting a cheap net in the harbour and we catch a surprising number.

Check your council what's on pages are there are often ranger led events.

Where are you? There are often deals to be had on premier inns or Travelodge. Just to make it easier to go a bit further afield. We go south to Dundee for camper down park or Crombie/ monike. Or all of Angus has amazing play parks. Carnoustie for example has a brilliant park, splash pool and skate ramp.

Sometimes it's cheaper to pay one night away in order to do free stuff that is different to the norm!
Camping or camping pods (not the fancy glamping kind) also a great way to just go somewhere slightly different. We've been 20 minutes down the road and had a great time

Picnic by a river.

Buy some cheap flower presses and press wildflowers (only if there are loads!).

Pizza making with wraps or flatbreads- put all the stuff in bowls on the table.

Campfire in the garden, with songs and marshmallows.

Spotting shapes in the clouds.

Make a story where you take it in turns to say the next line (my kids LOVED this one!).

One of the highlight of my summer as a child was my Grampy putting out the sprinkler in his garden, and me running through it in my swimming costume squealing at the cold water on a boiling hot day.

Another joy was ice cream from the ice cream van, a rare treat.

Making a den in the garden using a bedsheet and two dining chairs.

Camping in the garden in a tiny tent armed with a stack of comics.

My own children want to do f-all except bloody screen time.

Actually my kids loved picnics in the park, rock pooling, painting the patio slabs with water and a paint brush. Chalk on the patio, making treasure maps, creating (stinky) perfume from mashed up flowers, making daisy chains, feeding ducks.

As children we loved spinning around with arms outstretched until we fell over. We’d then stare up at the spinning sky…nowadays I would probably vomit if I tried to do it!

We used to have two weeks abroad every year when I was a child, but the thing I remember most about the summer holidays was the day on the last week of the holidays that we used to go blackberry picking, then make a pie.

Stuff my DC loved doing for free when small:

building dens in the woods
Making mudslides into the river or down a hill
Building a dam in a river
Going to the woods then going off path by following a trail of feathers or red things or wild flowers etc
Scavenger hunts (good one if you are tired - set yourself up in the garden and make alist of twelve things. Give them the top thing on the list that they have to go and find and then they have to bring it to you to get the next thing on the list. When everyone has found everything (so the winners help the losers) they all get a choc ice or lolly

Rainy days:
Build an indoor den with sheets over chairs or upturned tables, with sofa cushions as walls.
Hide and seek or Sardines. DC loved this so much that this Christmas they asked to play it again even though they are 19 and 20!
Family film night. Home made popcorn (dirt cheap!) and home made pizzas. Watch in the dark.

It sounds like a wonderful holiday.

Other ideas:

Make playlists of favourite songs on Spotify or YouTube for different occasions - exercise playlist, chill-out playlist, driving playlist etc

Cutting pictures from old magazines to make collages.

Water play in the garden - sprinklers, paddling pools, water fights etc

Lots of ideas from Wildlife Watch here: www.wildlifewatch.org.uk/activities

'Arty' dinners - decorate your own pizzas (making pictures with pizza toppings) and decorating biscuits with icing and sweets.

Scavenger hunts

I wonder when it became a thing to do stuff/ holidays every school holidays. We had 1 trip, usually navy day or army day we just played out everyday in the 1970s. If we were really lucky we stayed at a cousins house for a few days..I remember playing tennis over the top of the cottage..🤣
DM worked so DGM looked after us until we were about 9 then she got a job too.

Loads of great ideas here, does your local area have any kind of days out Facebook group, there is a really good one for the North East where there are loads of free and low cost ideas for activities and days out during the school holidays.

We used to recreate sporting events in our back garden - mostly the summer Olympics. We’d invent athletics challenges for weeks on end, with a big scoreboard. Ah happy childhood memories.

If you have a Pick your own nearby, that can be fun - not free, but fun. Take a picnic along.

We also love doing some kind of big craft project in the summer, or maybe some upcycling, or build a pond in the back garden. My kids love helping to water the plants and pick our home grown fruit and vegetables.

The days when kids could be free.
How times have changed.
For the better?