During Spring we were invited to review The Plough at Lupton, luxury dog-friendly accommodation in Cumbria which offers suites at incredible prices, I was excited, Holly Bobbins was excited but our calendars we all so busy that it took us until a couple of weeks ago before we could arrange it all.

We had a plan to go to Wales and the fact that Upton is next to Kirkby Lonsdale, literally on the way to Wales, it seemed to be a good idea to start our adventures off with a night at the award-winning Plough.  We stayed in the Bellingham suite and I can't even tell you how much I loved the luxury of it all, at some hotels when you have a dog you end up in a room which is unloved and sometimes broken but not at the Plough.  All of their rooms apart from the honeymoon suite are dog-friendly and they're all equally as luxurious.  Holly particularly loved the cool floor tiles on a day which was warm and a little sticky.

I wish I could say the rooms were the best thing about the Plough, Lupton but no, for the biggest treat was yet to come as we ate in their delicious bar, surrounded by the other happy diners, no being thrown in a corner because Holly Bobbins was with us, no, Holly was quite the little celebrity graciously accepting all of the attention as she sat under the table hoping for tasty morsels to be dropped.

Sadly for Holly, there was no such luck although I did share a little steak with her because she'd done so much exercise on our earlier ramble around nearby Kirkby Lonsdale, we'd walked to see Ruskin's View, previously loved and painted by Turner, it's not a massive walk from the main parking area and I recommend it if you're are staying locally.

It's no wonder we were exhausted and very full after all 3 courses and we all fell into bed, Harriet and Bobbins had a great night's sleep, I know this because I had to listen to their snoring... all night!

After a delicious cooked breakfast and an amazing shower, it was time to say our goodbyes and head for the green and pleasant land of Wales!  

The last time I went to Wales, (with the exception of going to Bluestone in 2017) was when I was just a teenager so I'd been looking forward to it for ages and really it could not have been more perfect, we stayed 8 miles away from Aberystwyth, in a little Airbnb (if you click on that link we both get some travel credit) studio in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.  It was literally in the middle of the Cambrian mountains and not even 1 bar of phone signal but thankfully we did have wifi (couldn't miss the Love Island final now could I?).  

To say we had the best time is an understatement, we walked for miles, we got lost at the top of mountain roads and we visited Devil's Bridge, Aberystwyth, Machynlleth and Llangollen where we went on the highest navigable aqueduct in the world in a canal boat, it was an amazing experience and we all loved it.  I think Holly has been on more modes of transport than most children, she's not been on a plane yet but I'm sure if there were pet-friendly flights she would love it.

For me, there are no better adventures than the ones I have with my best friend and my dog, we laugh so much and it's when I'm at my most relaxed, I'm even pretty funny when I relax you know 😉 I think there's just something brilliant about travelling with friends, it's definitely not the same as family travel because truly you are free to please yourself and Harriet just kind of goes with the flow, well I say that but as long as I choose child-friendly activities for her inner 5-year-old she's usually happy.  I already can't wait for our next adventure even though we don't know where or when it's going to be.  

We stayed at The Plough, Lupton, a luxury dog-friendly Inn near Kirkby Steven in Cumbria, we were given a suite plus bed, breakfast and evening meal in return for an honest review.

Let's start this again shall we?

You may remember me from previous blogs such as...

Yep, I haven't blogged for nearly a month for a variety of reasons - 

• I've shot a lot of weddings lately and in between shooting them, (often with smoke bombs) I've been a slave to editing and to all manner of portraits and client work.
• When Google+ closed its doors it slashed my traffic by around a third and that's hard, especially as a blogger who does occasional sponsored posts but I've given myself a talking to about why I started blogging in the first place and I still hope to be writing my scattered thoughts for the next decade or so.
• Abigail cut me out of her life because I shared a post about coercive control on Instagram and I still can't process it months later, being silent about any kind of marital or relationship abuse just leads to more abuse, we can only stop this stuff from happening if we talk about it.  I'll always be here for her and she knows that and that's all I can really say right now because I still can't talk about it without feeling my heart actually hurt.
• I went on holiday with Looby and Holly Bobbins and actually did no work whilst I was there, this is a rare occurrence for me.
• I started to live the slow life, I've spoken about this before but these days you will mostly find me in my garden.

So, a lot of things have happened and yet, nothing has really happened, just life.

The summer holidays are just around the corner and for the first time I'll be spending more time alone than ever before, Looby will be off with friends and horses for most of it and I haven't really worked out what I'm going to do with myself as yet.  Harriet finishes work on Friday and we're going away on the 28th to Cumbria and then a couple of nights near Aberystwith, all with wonder dog Holly Bobbins of course.

I was also trying to plan a one-woman trip to the highlands but coach companies are so complicated and it doesn't seem like I've been able to find one which works with the dates when I'm actually available.  I have been thinking about whether I can do a one-woman rail and Airbnb  (if you click that link you can join Airbnb and get £23 off your first trip and I'll get some credit towards my travels) trip to the highlands but it just depends on the price of rail tickets etc.

I really want to make the most of summer even if I'm childfree but for me, I'm still trying to process that my kids are older and the summer holidays aren't that magical thing they used to be.  I'm sure like Christmas I just need to redefine them for myself, I'm sure if I don't it will end up in knocking off my depression and that's not what I want at all.

What I need I think is some kind of grown-up summer holiday bucket list I can check off and live my best life but I think I'm currently going through some kind of mid-life crisis in all kinds of areas of my life.

One thing that is definitely happening, I campaigned for a community garden and it's happening with the help of the NCS (national citizen service) I cannot wait to help build a garden for my local community with the help of 15 or so enthusiastic young people.  The plan is to remove a massive box hedge and a boulder from a disused and nettle filled flower bed, then to put in herbs and bee attracting flowers as well as putting a park bench and maybe a picnic table, finally I want to get lots of outdoor toys for the local small ones and hold a big party in my community to really bring them together.  Hopefully, it's the start of something amazing and I've already pledged to contribute time and financially so much as I can.  After all, I believe that small scale philanthropy can change the world, I know I am imperfect but that doesn't mean that I can't do amazing amounts of good for the community.

The summer of friendship and extraordinary experiences...

I'm sitting writing from a lodge located in the most beautiful nature reserve just a stones throw away from the Humber bridge, it's been the most incredible day, I've laughed until my tummy hurt, I've seen sharks and I've cuddled sheep, I've met an adorable Dalmatian called Ozzy and I've snuggled with a guinea pig.  Truly today has been a day the soul requires to keep you sane.  We've been to The Deep in Hull, Bridlington for ice-creams, lunch and amusements and finally we arrived at our lodge in the late afternoon.

The summer of friendship and extraordinary experiences is something I've been waiting for my whole life, I embrace each moment of my singleton status and although I am sure that one day I will want to settle down, for now I feel younger and more free than I have ever felt before.

Airbnb really is about finding the most incredible spaces and places and that's what we have found here, I'm going to write a full article and review when I have the time to get all of the images from my camera but I recommend to anyone who wants to come and cuddle a tame sheep you should come stay in the Lakeside Nature Retreat in Barton-upon-Humber, it's around £60 a night but if you sign up with that link (the one that says airbnb) you'll get £20 off your first trip which is what Harriet did and so we paid £20 each for me, my girls and her, that is a bit of a bargain when you think of your average BnB, we all have our own bedrooms, and I don't think we would run out of things to do if we stayed for a week because although it really is a tranquil getaway it's also near to so many places like Hull, Lincoln, Bridlington, Filey, Scarborough and that's where we are heading tomorrow, back to Scarborough, back to the sea life centre, Harriet and Abigail haven't been there yet and like Looby and I, we're all ambassadors for this year.  Hoping to see the otters this time, in fact I'll just sit and stay there until it's feeding time I think.

I've spent many years travelling both on my own and with my girls and when I was married we travelled as a family, that was often tinged with anger and moods (not my own, I hasten to add) but the brilliant thing now is that when you have a break with a friend every moment is filled with joy and often hilarious laughter, one day I'm sure I'll find someone to have a relationship with like that.

Tonight I sat outside as the light faded, I listened to the geese and the ducks as they quietened for the night, all in the world seemed calm, serene, a stillness I'd not felt for such a long time, whilst I'll always be anxious, it's just who I am (only my dog has more anxieties than me) I've never felt quite so calm and relaxed as I have these past few months and I think that's amazing, to feel your shoulders drop and your neck not always be sore and stiff from the constant tension in your body as you await the next upheaval or upset, well that is something that money definitely can't buy.

What's Wrong with Airbnb?

Just to say that the blog you're about to read was written just after we came back from our horrid Airbnb experience but I've had to wait until the review period of 14 days closed before I made this go live to stick to my agreement that I wouldn't leave a review...

There's no doubting that Airbnb has completely changed the face of travel all over the world, it removes the boundaries of accommodation offered and it gives the traveller endless options of unique and interesting places to stay and people to stay with.  It's completely changed the type of person who offers accommodation of course, people keen to meet travellers, swap stories and tales of their own travels as well as offering a clean comfortable bed and often a delicious hearty breakfast.  Sounds perfect right?

Well, that's all good and great except sometimes Airbnb can go terribly wrong, I've heard some tales I can tell you and now it seems I have my own to tell.

I have to start by saying that I was given a refund of some of the money I paid on the condition that I did not leave a review, oh yes, you should always bribe the people who stay with you when things go wrong, oh and don't forget to make a single parent with a puppy and a child feel so uncomfortable that they leave the property quicker than their legs can carry them, paying treble the cost of travel just so they can get home right now.

There are lots of details I can't tell you about for it might come across like I was leaving a review and so I won't mention the owners of the property but I will say don't ever go and stay in an airbnb property in Bo'ness, it's near Lilithgow in Scotland in case you were wondering.

Some points of note -

Paint so yellow it clearly hadn't been touched for years

Toys left stranded in the gardens with cobwebs covering them like the gardens that time forgot

A trampoline so covered in bird poo Looby wouldn't even get on it

A dirt infested bedroom which looked nothing like the photos

A kitchen so grim that it could only be described as a hovel and I refused to cook in it at all

A supposedly dog friendly owner who I asked for suggestions of dog friendly places and was asked if Holly wouldn't just sit outside the places whilst we had a cup of tea etc?

An owner who sat and criticised every single guest who'd been there before me, every single one had something wrong with them, I can only imagine what she's telling people about me

I could go on, really there's even more but I'll stop there because that's quite enough to be going on with but it did bring home to me the risks of booking with airbnb, what you're essentially putting out there along with the lovely owners who don't want you to come to living room recitals and who can provide a proper breakfast that isn't in an outdoor shed with cardboard sugar filled cereal cartons and nothing else, you're also opening it to people who will abuse the system, lunatics, weirdos, the crazies and of course if you are going to ask people to leave and then scare them into not leaving reviews then other people aren't going to find out about the situations they're facing.

My thoughts on this were that at least I have a voice, I don't really need the Airbnb review system because up to 20,000 a month read my blog and they also know that I have a reputation in the world of travel, I travel a lot, I travel alone, I travel with my daughters and I travel with my dog, a dog which is loved and embraced the world over, we are responsible lovely travellers, we like to do good deeds and kind gestures, for the most part we'd never speak ill of anyone but this was the straw which figuratively broke the camels back.  I won't get back that week with my daughter, that holiday which I scraped together enough to pay for it because together time is so precious, I'm only glad that our first week in Edinburgh was so amazing, we were so sad to leave because of the wonderful adventures we'd had and the quite brilliant people we'd met.  The dog friendliness of Edinburgh stands out in Scotland because as a whole Scotland isn't all that dog friendly, it's child friendly but not if you have a dog and it's raining, the licensing laws prohibit children in lots of places that serve alcohol but welcome dogs so you have a strange thing where potentially you could take your dog for a warm sit down but your child would have to be the one tied to a lampost outside, you wouldn't do that would you?  No you wouldn't and that's the same reason I'll never leave Holly tied to a lampost outside a pub/cafe/restaurant.

So, will I travel using Airbnb again?  I've thought about this over and over since I got back on Tuesday night and the answer is that whilst I'll use the service again I'll also make sure that I only ever book somewhere where I get the whole property, I won't ever take a room in someones house again, there's just too much risk of crazy, particularly since I like the quirkier experiences and staying somewhere different.  I will search for commercial based alternatives, after all Airbnb isn't any cheaper than the professional lets out there, it's just that it's handled differently, certainly in this country anyway, it may be different in the rest of the world.

So sorry for the long essay of a post but I felt the world needed to know just what we'd had to deal with, as I said, that's not even half of it...

Burglars, Heat and too much Rain

This week has been another odd one, ever since we were first burgled about a month ago we've had the same guys come back every single week and we think they even stole Loobys replacement mobile phone as she swore she left it on the kitchen table, went out to play and then came back and it was gone.  I've always felt safe in my own house, even when my agoraphobia was at it's worst I still felt secure in my own house but that's changed and now I am uber jumpy even when in my favourite spaces, every time Holly barks or the cats shuffle things about downstairs I get jumpy, even though I know we're locked in and no one can get us I find myself living in a constant state of anxiety.  This time when the burglars came I was in my garden, I ended up shouting at one of them, running into my house, locking the door and calling the police, who to their credit were with me in minutes.  It seems they still can't actually catch the perpetrators though and it's really starting to get to me, this time they advised me to buy some home surveillance stuff and of course I did that straight away so hopefully when that arrives we'll finally be safe because if they do try their luck again there'll be video evidence.

It's one of those times where if I could move house I would go tomorrow, whilst I'm not one for running away from problems in this case I think it could provide some of the solutions, sadly though until my girls leave secondary school and Iain leaves college it's not even an option.

This week has also been hot, really hot, too hot for Holly the beagle hot, we've started walkies at 6/7/8 or even 9pm at night when it's cooling down and it's definitely helped her feel better, yesterday I even resorted to giving her a cool bath which she wasn't amused about as she hates water but she definitely perked up afterwards even if she did have a bit of a huff with me about it!

I've had some lovely outdoor photo shoots this week, one on Monday when the weather was a little dull but quite warm and 1 on Tuesday when it was pretty full on hot up in my clients gloriously huge garden in Stocksfield, mostly though the weather continues to plot against me at weekends and I'm sitting here on a very rainy Saturday morning having moved all of  this mornings photo shoots to a hopefully much sunnier afternoon later today.  It's weird that the weekdays seem to be so sunny and the weekends rainy, maybe it's always like this but because I've shot mainly portraits instead of weddings this year I've noticed it more!  I've always been quite lucky when it comes to sunshine and weddings so once my diary is full again you'll be able to celebrate with sunny weekends again.

In just a couple of weeks it'll be holiday time and I can't wait, I am so ready for a couple of stress free weeks where I don't have to think about anything other than Looby, Holly and I, no alarms, no work, just adventures, speaking of which I haven't actually planned what we're doing on our second weeks holiday, I've offered Looby a flat in Glasgow and a houseboat near Stirling, both of which I found on Airbnb but she's not keen on either of them, she doesn't do flats or boats apparently, I may have to resort to a blindfold for her so that she can't see where we're staying, heehee!

Lets hope this week ahead brings more sunshine, less burglars and more holiday choices!

Caravans, Bell Tents and a bedroom in someones house, holidays Airbnb style

Being a travel writer and blogger of course you're never really on holiday but this week is quite an adventure for Looby and I.  We are currently in Hereford spending some time staying in Ugly Betty an 80's caravan which has been given a delicious makeover, click on the link to see her transformation.  I booked this last week on Airbnb (if you use that link to sign up and book a holiday you'll get £15 credit) and I recommend you come and stay here as soon as you can because the whole house and the caravans are delightful as are the wonderful children (one of whom is now Loobys new best friend and they've spent a lot of time jumping up and down on the giant trampoline) and the gorgeous animals, Pollys house is an artists house and as such if you are looking for clinical, minimalist and unmarked then it's probably not the experience for you but if you love people and animals and a beautifully quirky experience as well as some gorgeously delicious food then do come and stay, it's one of the most unique experiences I've had while travelling!  On Friday we'll check out and then we're off to Weston-Super-Mare to stay in someones spare bedroom, and we've already been informed they have a dog and five cats, I can't wait!

Although I am photographing any cities we go to for my book Postcards from the City, the UK Cityscapes project, I'm also looking forward to experiencing new places, visiting the zoo in Bristol or the aquarium and maybe going to Weston Super Mare for fish and chips on the prom.

Today we went to Abergavenny in Welsh Wales, a place I can remember visiting on a family holiday when I was a teenager (so, so long ago) and it's just as beautiful today as well as being a thriving market town with a market that spills out onto the streets, I think that's something quite unique in these times and actually the whole town was so busy today, busier than some of the cities we've visited.

If you want to keep up with our adventures I shall of course be active on Instagram at least and I'll tell you something, I am really missing my doggy, hubby, Abigail and Iain, luckily Paul, Abigail and Petunia are off to a husky retreat next weekend and Iain, well he's staying home to look after Pyracantha, Poppy and Cupcake the cats.

Caught this quick shot of Looby last night as we wandered around Hereford, oh my how she's growing up.

Yes I do live in a menagerie!

Happy Holidays everyone.

Mandy's 7 Top Websites for Cheaper Travel in the UK

If there's one thing that I do a lot of dear reader it's travelling, especially for my UK Cityscapes project and probably even more than that I spend time researching the best places to find super deals for travel in the UK so it's only right that I pass them on to you so you can save yourself money on travel and hopefully spend it on ice-creams and souvenirs instead.

1. www.lastminute.com I've found lately that this is my preferred site for finding hotel bargains, often you'll click on a hotel and it will offer a secret extra discount or of course they offer their special deals on secret hotels.  This week they sent me a 10% discount code which I used to book 3 hotels, this then lead to them sending me a time limited by invitation only 15% code and so of course I grabbed another excellent hotel deal with that.
2. www.trivago.com This is the biggest hotel comparison website, sometimes they'll even give you an extra discount to be one of their secret hotel testers, if I can't find a good deal on lastminute.com Trivago is the next website I visit.
3. Quidco In addition to the savings on travel offered by the comparison website you'll often find that you also get cash back via Quidco which is essentially making the travel even cheaper again.
4. eastcoast.co.uk I use this to book all of my train tickets no matter where I'm going, I always seem to be able to find bargains and they also have a loyalty scheme where you get points which you can then convert into free train travel.  What's more the free train tickets don't have to be from specific locations, I plan to save up enough to get from Newcastle to Exeter, if I play my cards right all I'll need is 500 points, that's 250 points per journey.  The best thing if you have kids and you are booking your free journey is that you can take along the kids for a fiver each.  
5. www.laterooms.com I have used this site longer than all of the others and over the years we have had some absolute bargains, we stayed in a fairy tale castle in Scotland once for an absolute steal and last year we stayed in a suite in a hotel which included dinner for the 4 of us for £79 because we booked on a whim.  It's a really great site if you like a bit of impetuous travel like I do, it's often been lunchtime on a Saturday and we've decided we might as well get in the car and go do something fabulous.
6. uk.megabus.com I'll say this one quietly because it's not my favourite form of travel, I really do prefer train travel but I got from Newcastle to Birmingham for £5, if you're thinking of travelling by Megabus though, do me a favour and go and read my 10 top tips for taking the Megabus
7. Airbnb.com Now this one is going to require a full review once I have completed my first stay to Aberdeen but I've been on this website a lot and it seems to me that if you want to travel with your family, perhaps hiring a full house all over Europe this is the site that you want, it's all fully reviewed by users to protect you.  I'm staying with a lovely lady in Aberdeen and have booked her guest bedroom for less than half the price of hotels on all of the comparison websites.

So do get in touch if you have any other recommended sites you love that get you incredible bargains, I booked this morning for Newcastle - Hull - Manchester - Newcastle in just a couple of weeks and got all of the travel for £40 and the hotels for £60, that's 2 hotels not £60 each! 

Happy travelling!