laratheescapeartist

For the second half of our summer holiday we went to the UK to visit family on the Eurotunnel. Every two years we have a big meet up with my side of the family (I have two younger brothers and a younger sister who between them have five children). This year we stayed in a big house in Devon, near Pippacott. It was a lovely house, but the roads in Devon are nuts- to get to the house it was a mile and a half of a 2 way single track road with very few passing points. The locals bombed up and down, but because of the high banks you couldn’t see anything round the corners so leaving the house in the car was a nail-biting experience and was completely impossible on foot unless you had a death wish.

Like in Denmark the house was not built for a heatwave – all the glazing faced West despite and closing all the indoor blinds and with the aircon in the living room/dining room turned up to max it was still way too hot inside, they really need to install some outer blinds. But it was beautiful, and we got to explore Devon and went to a couple of beaches (Croyde and Woolacombe), Lundy island, Arlington Court and cycled along the Tarka trail all of which I would highly recommend, although not with my brother navigating as he managed to set some rather physically challenging targets. 30km cycling is a bit tough for 7-11 year olds! And a short walk of 7k m in full sun is not nothing for 5 and 7 year olds! Or 74 year olds!! Or someone who has just twisted their ankle – me! We also had some drama on the last night as a barn nearby burst into flames and about 7 fire trucks came past the house to try to put it out. Luckily after being super dry there had at least been a sea mist that night and the wind must have been in the other direction so we didn’t need to evacuate. I can’t say it was a relaxing holiday, but the kids had a great time being with their cousins and hopefully in two years time I will have recovered enough to want to go on another family trip!

Once again we did it without flying- we all drove to the house apart from one of my brothers who took the train from London. In total I estimate we emitted 0.55 tonnes of CO2 doing the round trip journey from Brussels/Acton/Cheltenham and Cockermouth. We could easily for a similar price have met in Spain and stayed in a big house there. As an example 12 return flights to Malaga from London Heathrow and 4 from Brussels to Malaga would have emitted 11.8 tonnes of CO2 – more than 20 times more than the no fly version. And this saving of 11.25 tonnes of C02 isn’t nothing- each tonne of CO2 ultimately melts 650 tonnes of ice , so that’s 7,312 tonnes of ice we’ve delayed melting by choosing a flight free extended family summer holiday.