The Gower Peninsula (or five go mad in Wales)
As a child, I was twice taken to Wales for my summer holiday. One summer, we spent at the seaside, another in the mountains, but on both occasions, it was North Wales that I visited, the traditional holiday area of the principality. By contrast, South Wales had then - and still has - the reputation of being a rather grim mining and industrial area. So I was amazed on a recent family half-term holiday there to find vast, empty white beaches, beautiful countryside and unsprayed hedgerows packed with wild flowers.
I was even more unprepared for the level of sophistication that greeted us at Stembridge Mill, home for the next few days for two stressed-out London mothers (Liana and me) and three boys - Kaspar, 13, Yates, 11 and Christian, 9. Stembridge is unclassifiable. It's not a hotel, but there again, it's not a holiday cottage. It's rather like having your very own country house, hidden away in beautiful countryside - fields, a trout stream at the bottom of the garden, woods and ponds.
With just four rooms, Stembridge Mill is exactly the right size for a family party. There are two rooms downstairs, both with twin beds. Upstairs, the rooms have double beds and, on a mezzanine level, two children's beds, with a heart carved out of each wooden headboard. So, you can fit in eight adults and four children. Babies can be catered for, too. Even full, the Mill won't feel overcrowded. There is a big, airy upstairs sitting room overlooking the stream and the woods, while downstairs is a big dining room, letting onto a state-of-the-art kitchen - not that you ever need to use it yourself.
There is great attention to detail - tastefully furnished, filled with beautiful bed linen and tableware and with every possible home comfort. Don't worry if you've forgotten your toothbrush, there's a spare in the drawer of the dressing room, next to a selection of cotton towelling robes. In the sitting room, there's an eclectic music collection, and, perhaps best of all for frazzled mothers, on the deck overlooking the mill pond there's a huge outdoor hot tub from which to stare at the waving treetops in the day or watch the bats swoop at night.
The grounds run to 21 acres - perfect exploring material for our three boys - and they are full of wildlife from swallows and owls to herons and badgers. There is a swimming pool and a play area, plus plenty of tame animals for children to play with. It was quite hard to tear the boys - and ourselves - away from all this, but we decided we really did have to see a bit more of the area while we were there if we were to discover the Gower at all. If you picture Wales as the pig's head, the Gower is the little peninsula that sits between its chin (Cardiff) and its snout (Pembrokeshire). The whole area was Britain's first designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and it's easy to see why.
We lured the boys away from their lives of luxury at the Mill with the temptation of surfing. It may not be California, but Llangenith (also known as Rhossili Bay) has a beach that many Los Angelenos would envy. Three miles long, it was virtually deserted in May, with breathtaking views of the islands of Burry Holmes and Worms Head at its extremities, and a gently sloping beach, its shallow water making it very safe for novice surfers. However, as it is at the very westernmost point of the Gower Peninsula, it picks up all of the Atlantic swell and gives long waves that can be ridden for a hundred metres or more.
The Surf School is part of the Welsh Surfing Federation and has properly qualified teachers with wetsuits and boards for every size and age. None of the boys had ever tried surfing before but by the end of their two-hour lesson they had all ridden a wave - both lying and standing! - most successfully. They were exhausted but exhilarated and Christian voted surfing the best thing (with a lot of competition) of the holiday. There are, in fact, so many activities to choose from it's hard to fit them all in. Horse riding, mountain biking, windsurfing and golf can all be found very close by.
The next day we spent at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre, just to the north of the Gower peninsula, near Llanelli. This is a full day out and, if the weather is good, a great place to picnic. The wetlands themselves are beautiful with ever-changing vistas of lakes, fens and streams and with spectacular views of the Gower. There are nature trails, a very hands-on indoor Discovery Centre for wet weather and ducks, geese and swans that the children can feed by hand. There are even flamingos.
There is also a lot of information about water and its conservation that the boys found interesting - including a life-size figure, filled with the 70% of water that we all contain. Our favourite moment, though, was the tour of the hatching sheds, where the guide shone a torch into eggs to show the development of the chick inside and the new hatchlings ranging from a day to two weeks old.
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