Embrace and enhance your holiday home lifestyle with 5 simple things that could be the start of something big. Sometimes it’s the simple things that matter most. Sometimes there’s a new pleasure in things you thought were old school. In a world where vinyl albums rock and vintage is the rule, give some thought to these five simple things that could be the start of something big for your holiday home lifestyle.
Create caravan holiday memories with a real camera
By which we mean a camera. Not your ‘phone. A camera. It doesn’t have to be a top of the range and hugely expensive one. It could even be a vintage one. The point is that it’s a real one. Your smart phone might make that shutter click sound but nothing beats pressing your eye to the viewfinder, and pressing the button to hear the real click of a camera in action. Wherever you choose to have your uk holiday home, from Suffolk to Teesside, you’ll never be short of subject matter. Our beautiful coastline and countryside will see to that. So start snapping up the views and creating holiday memories with a bit more care and a bit more style. Because frankly a retro styled or genuinely vintage camera looks very cool. Add an extra lens or some rolls of film and what have you got? A very good excuse for buying a very stylish bag. That’s what. Digital is probably going to be the format you use, but don’t rule out the fun of film. It’s still available. Have you noticed tv commercials recently promoting hard copy prints of photographs. Just like we used to have. (If you really don’t remember that’s quite hurtful. But ask your parents). We know you’ve got hundreds of pictures stored on your ‘phone but actually looking at proper prints is unbeatable. And they’re going to last longer. They will be there to see no matter how many format and software changes happen. Got any pictures stored on a floppy disk? See what we mean? (No? Ask your parents. Again.) You might make photography something you do on holiday home trips, or it might grow into a bigger interest. Either way it’s a fun thing to do, it allows you to express yourself, and it creates great souvenirs of your holiday home times.
Capture your Suffolk holiday home in a scrapbook
Of course one thing you can do with prints of photos is paste them into a scrapbook. But scrapbooks are about more than just that. You might be in a Suffolk holiday home, or in any of the great holiday homes on the beach UK wide, but wherever you are you can capture the experience in a scrapbook. You may not have thought about scrapbooks since you were a child. It’s time to revisit them. Pictures, postcards, menus, magazine cuttings - gather then up and glue them in. Add your own notes. Get the children and grandchildren involved. Bordering on the world of crafting, and seriously on trend, scrapbooks are a joyously therapeutic activity. Be as creative as you like. And add to them with every visit. This could become a big thing.
Frame the Lincolnshire Wolds in water colours
Or Clacton on Sea beach, or some Suffolk lodges by the sea; wherever you spend time at your uk holiday home you’ll find real enjoyment in dabbling with some water colours. We love colour now. Grown ups are spending time with colouring-in books and kids have pre-school colouring pages downloaded as pdfs. But putting paint to paper. That’s special. As with all of these ideas you don’t have to start off with, or even necessarily get to, the expensive stuff. You could make an exploratory start for under twenty quid. But try it. It’s a great way to take a few minutes to yourself and even if it doesn’t unlock an undiscovered talent that’s about to propel you to the Turner Prize, you might just find that you’re quite good at it. And, more importantly, that you enjoy it. It’s not necessarily about accurately recreating every detail of what you see. Broad brush strokes (literally - for once!) can do the job. Make the most of your holiday home time. Create something.
From Norfolk caravan sites to Clacton on Sea, jot it all down in a journal
Just like we’re talking about a camera and not your ‘phone, here we’re taking about a notebook, a journal, not your laptop or tablet. This is about the act of writing a journal. It brings two beautiful benefits from the outset. There is something very lovely about choosing a book to write in and a writing instrument to write in it with. There have probably never been more journals and notebooks available to buy. If evidence were needed that our computers are not the only way we like to communicate and confide - this is it. The choice ranges from very expensive notebooks from famously expensive London stationers, through the medium priced, but very cool, brands like Moleskin, to cheap and cheerful pads from the supermarket. The same with pens and pencils. You probably don’t want to know how much the most costly cost. You could start for free because there has to be a pen in a drawer at home somewhere. Either way rediscover the pleasure of pen and paper. And rediscover how good it feels to write down what you’re thinking. On serious notepaper it’s known to be good for your mental health. On a lighter note, although it really doesn’t matter what you write because it’s entirely up to you, do remember you’re a grown up now. You don’t want to go back to those teenage diaries. Do you? No. You know you don’t. (Are you actually blushing? You are. Aren’t you!). You can keep a journal of your holidays at your holiday home, or you can expand it into, well, life really. Just do it. It’s a lovely, expressive, tactile thing to do. And if you discover that you can actually write, well who knows what next?
Get more out of your UK holidays with a guide
No, not a person with a flag asking you to follow them around the town. Or even the guide book to the town, or county and definitely not an App. We’re talking about a guide book to a subject or species. It might be a book about trees, or birds, or butterflies or flowers but it can be a the key that unlocks an entire interest. The more you know about something the more you can enjoy it. Knowledge makes you more curious. Time spent at your uk holiday home is exactly the sort of time for you to explore new interests that will enhance your relaxation. Grabbing a guide book, finding a field guide, the sort you can scribble in the margins of, is such a beneficial, restorative, thing to do. You could have fun and become an expert. Get out there. Hold on - where are you going? No. We didn’t mean you should set off with a camera round your neck, and a rucksack full of scrapbooks, water colour boxes, journals and field guides. We meant one at a time. Just choose one. Ok. Up to you. Play nicely. Enjoy. Be back for tea time…..
